Raven's Flight
by Ruelux Prince
Summary: "Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers are proud to present: The Marauders' Map". What if there is a different person instead of Wormtail as the fourth member of the Marauders? How would that change Hogwarts, how would change the future? Once known as Ani and Raiders
1. Hogwarts Express

**Chapter 1: Hogwarts Express**

**Warning: ****This story may contain traces of: spoilers, tortures, magical spells, AU, swords, powerful spells, badly written but still very awesome duels, family, severitus, rambling author notes and minor character bashing****. Engage at your discretion.**

**THE OTHER WARNING: This author is currently very busy and suffers from severe cases of bad humor. Take the WARNING seriously, just not the author in general.**

**Enjoy**

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><p>He's finally here, he was finally here! There was only a dozen minutes left until he could lose this pathetic excuse of a family and get to the only haven he deemed safe when he first heard about the castle in the night. There would only be a minimal amount of politics for him to digest, he could just relax and forget all about those pure-blood bigots for at least 9 months.<p>

On September 1st, 1971, Sirius Orion Black was a very happy little boy.

He nodded to his father once last time that morning, briefly hugged his mother, promised to be sorted into Slytherin (not really), patted Regulus on the head and told him he would try to send his little brother a Hogwarts Toilet seat as a birthday present, promised to be sorted into Slytherin again (inwardly, he promised to every god listening to him that he would never step foot inside Slytherin even if he's threatened at wandpoint), and clambered onto the scarlet engine.

Most of the compartments were full, filled with screeching owls and croaking toads, one ginger cat tried to rip his eye right out of his sockets and make cookies with it, so he kept walking.

When he finally came across a compartment with only a thin boy ready, he gratefully knocked and asked if he could come in and sit down.

The other boy's black eyes met his for a second, his pupils narrowed slightly then he nodded. Sirius sighed in relief, gracelessly squeezed through the sliding doors, shoved his heavy trunk underneath his seat and finally had a good look around.

The compartment he found himself sitting were small in comparison to the others he had walked past on his way here. Probably only 4 people or maybe 5, if you stretch it, could manage to fit in. He flitted a glance at the boy opposite him and wondered.

The boy's eyes were black, like ominous dark tunnels that muggles always assumed haunted. He gave an air of freezing coldness, as if getting close to him could burn your skin right off from your bones. Not particularly handsome, but has a certain attractive and noble look about it, pleasant looking if you will. Paler than white skin and long elegant fingers that expertly turned another page in his very thick book. High cheekbones and very thin stature.

"What is your name?" The boy asked, voice like silk.

"I'm Sirius Black," the boy raised an eyebrow and black eyes turned to stare at him through the spine of the thick book and his slightly greasy and very long hair, obviously heard of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black and obviously very surprised at the lack of chest puffing and arrogance following the introduction of the name.

"And yours?" Sirius said, couldn't help but feeling curious.

"Severus Snape," he replied, there is a flash of anger and hurt in his black eyes before he stamped it shut, attention falling back onto his book.

Sirius raised an eyebrow, mirroring Severus' early reaction, mind already preparing for the inevitable speech of stupid muggles, "Half-Blood?" Severus nodded. Sirius sighed and prepared for the worst, "Family?"

"My mother was Eileen Prince, my father is a drunken bastard that loves to beat his wife and child every chance he got. What is it to you anyway?" Severus snapped, black eyes suddenly blazing with fury and unspoken hurt.

Sirius swallowed and looked away, suddenly finding the window of the compartment a wonderful piece of fabulous art. His parents had never been abusive before. There's only the occasional swat here and there, usually accompanied by a gigantic verbal thrashing. Walburga and Orion expected him to do exactly what they wanted, if he didn't, punishment follows, like cleaning up the attic or the back storeroom in the library. He once had gotten lung infection from inhaling too much 'stuff' and Orion had refused to treat him until he started coughing up blood by the cupful.

Sirius caught sight of an angry red lash across Severus' shoulder blades from the window's reflection when he shifted in his seat, disturbing his jumper slightly. Sirius could fell his eyes widen, what kind of parent beat their child like that, assuring that mark is not the only mark. His parents had never gone that far.

"My father hates magic. The mere word send him on a smashing parade around the house. Things got better when I moved to my grandparent's house, but whenever I visit, I would always get a thrashing." Severus cackled bitterly, his long fingers slighting crunching up the page he's currently reading.

Sirius mirrored the cackle, startling Severus out of his reverie, "Welcome to the Bad Parents Club Severus, I had to cough up a bucket full of blood for _my_ father to deem I am unhealthy enough to stop listening to my tutor droning on and on about how stupid a muggle is.

"At least you have a tutor to teach you something. I have to go and nick school books from the trash bins of the wealthy kids living on the east side that have more money than they could want."

"At least you can go out and nick books. My days at home actually have a schedule and at least a page and a half of things I should and should not do."

"You have books to read and don't have to hide even in you house."

"Pretty much all of the books I'm allowed to read are all My Mother Approved. Besides, there is not a place I could hide where my parents couldn't find me."

"Well, you don't..."

This kind of conversation continued on until the trolley had come and gone. Sirius pleasantly discovered that you can eat, read and insult everything in your general vicinity all at once while also storing information. He also realized Severus Snape is the epitome of Slytherin, as was required of him, if he wants to survive in the house hold named Spinner's End.

Sometimes masks are the best sort of protection after all.

Severus was a very intelligent young man, as Sirius soon realized, after they had deviated from the topic of making your sucky home life worse than another person's also sucky home life to Hogwarts houses, to ghosts, to creatures and somehow animagus transformation. Sirius' black and white view had grudgingly opened up enough space for the grey to make itself comfortable.

Just when they are debating/discussing/arguing over their patronus and animagus forms and their sweets allocations, there is a timid knock on their compartment door and it opened for the second time in the journey and the two black haired boys turned their heads at the newcomer.

He had a head of sandy colored hair and tan skin. Amber eyes reflecting off the sunlight that filtered through the train's windows. Intelligent eyes that are quite like Sirius', with an amount of hurt that spoke of a painful past, much like Severus'. Scars crisscrossing over his youthful face, shabby robes and a tentative smile.

"Hello, may I sit here with you? A group of boys kicked me out of my compartment, saying I was too bookworm-y," slightly timid voice, but with a heavy undercoat of intelligence beneath the question and short explanation.

Severus shrugged, and turned back to his book, while Sirius welcomed the boy, who hastily introduced himself as Remus Lupin, with open arms.

So began a heated discussion on the fascinating subject of brooms, muggle sports, dragons and Polyjuice potions. With Sirius exclaiming at the top of his lungs of developments of broomstick pranks, Remus contributing slabs and slabs of lecture on the weaknesses of dragons and Severus' intelligent sarcastic sentences about the uses and misuses of earwigs, the time flew by quickly.

After the initial awkwardness over sweets and money, the three of them quickly settled into each other's company without further ado, with the hilarious face of watching Sirius taste a sock and swamp flavored Every Flavored Bean and suffocate on a Pumpkin Pasty at Remus' shocked expression at the sight of a laughing Severus Snape, being the only incident.

But that atmosphere of good company was quickly shattered at the rude entry of one James Potter.

The compartment door slammed open, causing Remus to almost tumble out of his seat, Sirius choked on thin air and Severus calmly raised an eyebrow, marked his book and closed it, before folding his hands across his lap and waiting for the intruder to speak up and subsequently receive a well earned reprimand on the Art of Knocking.

"Hello Potter," Sirius half spat. He had met James Potter at a social gala when he was 9, the memory of an arrogant git with messy hair and no regard to the authority of adults stuck clearly into his mind. It was only with Potter senior's threat of confiscation Potter junior's broom for the whole month that finally got the boy to shut up.

"Hello Black, what do we have here?" the boy drawled, a malevolent glint in his hazel eyes. Severus' other eyebrow shot up, Remus scowled slightly and Sirius casually fingered his wand, all the while wishing this conversation could be over so they can get some peace and quiet.

"Remus, meet the pompous majestic idiot that is James Potter. Severus, James Potter, feel free to tear his ego to shreds. And I do believe we have met before," Sirius ran an extremely brief introduction for the four of them, waving an arm at each person's general direction, hoping for something more productive and interesting could interrupt this conversation.

James nodded to Remus when the sandy haired boy's name was introduced, but it was Potter's reaction to Severus name that was the most surprising of them all.

Sirius had expected insults, disrespect, the best would be ignorance. The Potter family had come from a long line of prejudiced Gryffindors, and Severus was behaving like a standard Slytherin the moment words came out of his mouth. A standard Slytherin with the Art of Sarcasm and Dry Humor mastered _very_ thoroughly.

But, "I'm sorry about your mother," was definitely not what Sirius had expected.

Severus shot them a look that practically screamed 'later' before he allowed himself a sad little smile to grace his pale lips. His black eyes lighting up with something akin to regret and sadness, and a lot of pain, underneath it all.

Severus turned to James Potter, his lifeless hair falling away from his face as he gazed up at the still standing form of the boy with the hazel eyes, giving him one of his rare smiles that was finally genuine.

"Thank you, I appreciate that," there were tears swimming in his black eyes now, tears Sirius somehow knew were never allowed to be shed.

But if James_-bloody-_Potter could garner Severus Snape's genuine thanks, Sirius and Remus shared a small smile when they thought no body was looking, then James could not be that big of a self centered arrogant prick.

The pleasant atmosphere in the compartment resumed once more after an interruption, only this time, there was the start of something new, something wonderful, something unstoppable.

Much to the chagrins of Filth, later on in this very year.

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><p><strong>This is an idea I had recently. I absolutely despises Wormtail and wish I could be the one that boils him in a pit of hell-fire and poke sharp scythes down his watery eyes and scratchy throat for all eternity and all the time onward. So this is a fic of my creation and I want to fit my favorite character to my favorite band of raiders.<strong>

**I would love to hear your thoughts about this first chapter. Review please!**

**Updates will be soon.**

**Len**


	2. Sorting Hat

**Chapter 2: Sorting Hat**

**Warning: ****This story may contain traces of: spoilers, tortures, magical spells, AU, swords, powerful spells, badly written but still very awesome duels, family, severitus, rambling author notes and minor character bashing****. Engage at your discretion.**

**THE OTHER WARNING: This author is currently not very busy and suffers from severe cases of bad humor. Take the WARNING seriously, just not the author in general.**

**Enjoy**

* * *

><p><em>"Do you swear?"<em>

_"We solemnly swear..."_

It was James Potter's idea actually. Their friendship on the train had developed into something more, something far too precious to be let go after the sorting hat yelled their houses to the Great Hall, when the uncomfortable topic of House placement inevitably came up the second time round.

The one word, the one choice out of four a battered magical hat chose could determine whether or not the first real friendship Severus has would flourish or go up in flames that could burn several houses to ash.

So James Potter, of all people in that compartment, the arrogant prick, made all four of them swear an oath. Just a simple thing with only four eleven year olds and four lines of words from said four eleven year olds. It was Severus first serious promise he made in front a group of real friends. Not like those two word brush offs Lily was so very found of.

_We solemnly swear that, no matter what our Hogwarts House may be, no matter what hardship we may face in the future, us four would always be together, in sickness and in health, in classes and in detentions, we would always be friends. After all the times in Hogwarts and even times beyond. Always."_

Severus always loved the word 'always.' It signifies something eternal, something that could go beyond the clutches of time and space and everything in between. He hates it when people throw that word around, not wanting to understand the full impact of that simple word.

That was the last thing his mother had said to him, when _it_ happened.

He was pleasantly surprised when James gave his condolences on the train. It's very surprising for Auror Potter to divulge this sort of information to his precious son. The Daily Prophet didn't print a line about it. Obviously the pure-blood bigots in the influential part of the ministry did not care for disgraced pure-blood witches that marries durken bastards.

At least he was not the filthy boy living in that shack called spider's sticky end anymore, as he had heard numerous cruel parents and crueler children scream to him across the park. Now, he was the lonely boy in the house that is Prince Manor. His grandparents were rarely home, and when they were, he always holed himself in the enormous library than to listen to his grandfather babbling on and on about how wizards are better than muggles. At least he had ample time to practice Occulumency and read books.

But no matter. He's finally here at Hogwarts, with three friends that are not likely to ditch him in any forseeable time in the future. Hogwarts was what he had been dreaming off ever since he found a mold eaten copy of H_ogwarts, A History_ in a box labeled Freak Woman's Things.

And now, he was finally here.

The first sight of Hogwarts was breath-taking. Severus stared unblinkingly at the fairy tale castle that loomed up in front of them, and felt a foreign sensation of homecoming, of belonging. Prince Manor is beautiful, with a huge and well stocked lab and a wonderful greenhouse, for the Princes were a long line of successful and powerful potion brewers, but the very big manor was nothing compared to the sight of Hogwarts castle.

A stern looking woman who introduced herself as Minerva McGonagall took them from the gamekeeper Hagrid's beefy but very kind hands, and led them to the great hall, in front of a stool which sat a battered old Sorting Hat, and called attention and silence.

The first years collectively jumped when the Sorting Hat broke into song, making Severus wonder of that's what it does all year until the new batch of first years comes. Must be tedious, being a hat. There was a plump boy with mousy brown curls named Avery something or another that was first sorted into SLYTHERIN, Severus didn't pay much attention to anyone until...

"Black, Sirius."

The hat took quite a while to decide. He oculd see Sirius' mouth muttering from where he stood. Talking to the hat, arguing aloud when mind speaking didn't cut it was more likely, about not putting him into Slytherin. Severus could have sworn he saw the hat sigh and Sirius smirk. The hat opened its 'mouth', half of the Slytherin table is ready to start clapping, before it shouted, "RAVENCLAW!"

The third table burst into applause. Severus blinked. Intelligence + Sirius Black? Is the hat getting too old?

Then there was the very loud shriek of "SLYTHERIN" for Crabbe something-or-another. Severus nearly banged his head to person in front of him. What had the standards of the Noble House of Slytherin become since Eileen Prince was still at Hogwarts?

He snapped his head up when the name "Evans, Lily' was called. Lily walked to the stool, slightly tripping over herself in her excitement. It took only three seconds for the hat to decide on "GRYFFINDOR!" Lily didn't even spare him a glance as she walked to the roaring second table. Severus shook his head, his suspicions were, indeed, very true.

Several names were called, the equally burly Goyle I-think-his-name-was, went straight to the snake pit to join his twin brother.

Severus wished the Hat would hurry up.

Frank Longbottom, a boy with curly hair, was sorted to "GRYFFINDOR!" He especially enjoyed the long debate and lecture he had with Frank on the properties of various plants and potions ingredients, whenever he and his mother visited. The Longbottom family are like the Princes, renowned for their abilities in Herbology. They have always had an alliance with the Princes. Potions and Plants, the two best friends Frank would always say in a sing-song voice before Severus would whack him with a thick book.

Finally Remus went up to the stool and placed the hat on his head, hands twisting into various interesting shapes on his lap, before the Hat huffed yet another sigh and proclaimed "HUFFLEPUFF!" to the hall. The fourth table broke into a roaring applause.

Severus raised his eyebrows and shot a small smile of encouragement to Remus. For some reason, it didn't seem weird when Remus went to the warmest house of the lot. He does instate an aura of warmth, with a heavy undercoat of intelligence and secrets, whenever you are with him.

The Sorting continued. Mary McDonald, Marlene MacKinon both went to the house of the lion, while the other three houses gained three more students each.

A boy with mousy brown hair and watery eyes named Peter Pettigrew was called and placed in "GRYFFINDOR!" after a long while of thinking from the hat. If Severus trust his instincts that always proved him right, everyone should stay a mile, or a thousand, away from the boy that darted his eyes around the hall, seeking for someone. Peter Pettigrew may prove to be a problem later, but now, Severus could just sit back, relax and watch how much havoc Sirius could do with James in one week for Pettigrew. If his instincts were correct.

The Sorting for James lasted all but a second. The hat barely touched the boy's messy hair before it cried, "GRYFFINDOR!" James smiled brightly and made his way to the first table. A couple of them are standing, they must have read the name Auror Potter somewhere in the front page of the Daily Prophet a couple million times lately.

"Snape, Severus."

He glanced at the slightly curious faces around the hall and pulled the hat over his head, shutting out everything else.

A small voice spoke in the back of his mind, disregarding his Occulumency shields as he knew the Hat could. _"Difficult, very difficult. Plenty of talent and knowledge already, I see. Not above using questionable methods to achieve what you want too. Brave certainly, based on your childhood. A great mind for storing vast number of knowledge. Extremely loyal to those you deemed worthy... now where shall you go?"_

"Where I can achieve my hearts desire. I do believe you can see it."

"_Ah, but of course. The thing you want most. Be warned Mr Snape, you will sacrifice very much to achieve what you sought for. I will be the first to lead you to your way to greatness, as I did your freinds, as I did many others._ SLYTHERIN!" The last word was shouted to the hall.

When he took off his hat, he could see his three friends smiling at him, each mouthing him reassurances and good-lucks. The Slytherin table broke out into thundering applause. Severus heaved a small sigh of relief and dropped into an empty seat.

When everyone is stuffing themselves to the brim with hearty food and even better deserts of the welcoming feast, Severus spared a glance to each of house tables, he could clearly see James lecturing Frank good naturally on something that is fork brandishing worthy. Sirius was engaged in a heated conversation with an older boy with pale blonde hair and glazed blue eyes. Remus looks to be shooting down Amos Diggory? He never liked the teenager whenever he and his father turned up at Prince manor for no good reason other than snooping around, he's worse than James Potter in the arrogance department, and that's saying something.

The feast was barely over and already they are gathering attention to themselves. Severus spared a glance to the older years around him. It seems like the satire lessons he forced himself to learn has finally payed off, at least half dozen fourth years and sixth years are walking with tails between their legs for the treacherous passage to the Slytherin Common room after Dumbledore declared that the Forbidden Forest is, of course, forbidden. Intelligence and sarcasm, his two best friends since childhood. If his early years could be called that.

The day was almost over and all four of them had already half marauded the pride of the dozen students in their vicinity, at least Severus hoped they have.

_This should be an interesting seven years of Hogwarts. All four of us are sorted into different houses. Maybe we could do what it takes to finally end this prejudice between the houses once and for all. Heaven knows we would need a proper front to deal with _that. Severus thought as he drifted to sleep, grateful that nobody wants to share a room with him in fear of his powerful silvertongue at the prefect's room allocation, snuggling even deeper into his pillows.

Little does young Severus know, that one other mind is thinking exactly the same thing in his circular office, vigilantly guarded by a gargoyle that hops aside to the name of a muggle candy.

Severus eyes fluttered closed, finally hoisting the white flag to surrender to sleep, but not before one last thought crossed his mind.

_Marauded..._

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><p><strong>Some of you may notice the similarities of the 'train meeting' and Sorting with the canon Harry Potter. I want to make it similar but not a carbon copy. I want people to bond! For those you wanting Snape to be in Gryffindor, sorry, but I have plans for him in Slytherin. Here is a clue: SPY! and HOUSE UNITY! Clear enough for ya? All of the <strong>reasons will be explained a couple of dozen chapters later.<strong>**

****Do you guys even want a Harry Potter universe? I could get one, but I could also won't.****

**Pay attention to detail, is my advice to all of you reading. He he.**

**I would love to hear your thoughts about this chapter. Review please! ****Term 3 holidays have just started and I am forcing an update once a day regimen to myself, so look out tomorrow.**


	3. Monthly Bullies

**Chapter 3: Monthly Bullies**

**Warning: ****This story may contain traces of: spoilers, tortures, magical spells, AU, swords, powerful spells, badly written but still very awesome duels, family, severitus, rambling author notes and minor character bashing****. Engage at your discretion.**

**THE OTHER WARNING: This author is currently not very busy, bored out of her mind and suffers from severe cases of bad humor. Take the WARNING seriously, just not the author in general.**

**Enjoy**

* * *

><p>Severus' little group quickly made names for themselves.<p>

The group's friendship was questioned by many, especially by the older years who were either too engrossed in politics or already neck deep in prejudice. Others didn't seem to care much for four first years' _fragile_ relationship that, as they quote, "wouldn't last for more than a month anyway." Many prefects were telling others in their respective houses to lay off of them, but the bullying and the harassment quickly started.

Until pretty much all of said bullies hit a dead end.

One of the reasons friendship or romantic relationship won't work between Houses, is simply that you can't find a good and private place to talk or share things that are crucial to the growth of a friendship (there is too much people snogging in the Astronomy Tower already), so pretty much all of the inter-house relationships had died rather quickly, not to mention the amount of prejudice in the atmosphere that was always added by the bucketful.

No real friendships had survived more than a month before it started to flake. That is, until Severus Snape got himself sorted into Slytherin.

Contrary to popular belief, Rowena Ravenclaw is not the _only_ smart one in the circle of Hogwarts Founders, Godric Gryffindor just needs a huge neon arrow in red and gold, with a couple of whacks from Salazar Slytherin on the head, to use his brain, and subsequently his magic. The Founders are under no belief that Hogwarts is impenetrable, so they made secret passages out of student dormitories, just in case a megalomaniac dark lord happens to attack the school with his royal death munchers in the middle of the night. You never know.

Due to the icy silvertongue our young Severus oh so fortunate at possessing, all of the first years had inanimately refused to be in close vicinity to him, in fear of something nasty that is going to happen to their hard earned innocence. Professor Slughorn had managed to clean up one of the dorms at the back of the whole Slytherin territory and, with proper furnishing and warding from a slightly insane but very obliged Bellatrix Black, turned into a secret place only four people could get into.

Severus put his foot down long ago that if Sirius Black is going bring his secret stash of chocolate frogs and Every Flavored Bean inside his room, he would have to clean the sheets if there is even a spot of candy on the white cloth.

It seems Slytherin himself was a paranoid bastard and the room Severus is currently sleeping in is the hive mind of secret passages that oh so happens, to lead to Ravenclaw tower (did Slytherin and Ravenclaw have an affair or something?), near the kitchens (midnight snack, duh) and the Gryffindor common room (keep your friends close and enemies closer, please tell me Slytherin isn't...).

Of course, the above sentence about Slytherin's paranoia is not _that _true, as Severus learned in his fifth year at Hogwarts after he had an interesting conversation. But I digress.

The common room of Slytherin House had never seen someone quite like Severus Snape in roughly 30 years, ever since Tom Riddle walked its rooms. But Riddle doesn't have that sharp tongue and logical mind Severus possesses and uses feverishly. Severus Snape is not as charismatic as Riddle, nor as handsome, but he attract people like moths to light, which didn't end well for the 96% of the moths.

Severus was not that well-liked in his housemate's eyes. Highly reliable and respectable in many different ways, but with his iron fork of a tongue it was very hard to even get close to him. Some of them had already suspected a defense mechanism, namely the overly concerned Narcissa Black and the worries-about-pretty-much-everything-else Andromeda Black, but was too afraid to ask questions. Severus hates those kind of people, where you want to know but refuses to ask.

Back to the dead end we were talking about.

Most of the public bullies came from the other three houses, with Gryffindor at its head. Hufflepuffs are content to just sit and relax and cheer people on from the sidelines, or get the hell away fast and find a safe haven somewhere in the castle where you could not be hit with a stray jinx. Ravenclaws thinks bullying is a waste of time and all of those involved should be doing something better, like reading. Slytherin settle things in private, they are usually faced with wands from all three other houses and are barely surviving with a proper steel front, they don't need to give them anymore fuel!

What the bullies hadn't counted on was for the group they are targeting to keep their friendship, and use everything they have against them. Know your enemies, and in the bullies case, they do not know their opponents as well as they should (meaning they just charged in eyes closed, wand raised and forgotten to ask questions later) which led to their, very painful, way down from the precipice.

They have also _conveniently_ forgotten that the four boys they are targeting are from the each of the four houses, and all four of said boys soak up knowledge like a storm water drain on a rainy day.

After much careful consideration from Sirius, much arguments from James, much sarcastic comments from Severus and much more keeping the peace from Remus, they had devised a plan.

**1. Do not fight back in public, gain sympathies.** Since Slytherin are basically one giant family, and family always have their arguments one time or another, there is quite a few uproars whenever Severus came back after dinner with a bloody nose and hex effects all over his body. Which of course resulted in the cuddling from the Black sisters and the vehement threats from the rest of the house body, which always rang true.

Besides, who could even think about resisting the puppy-dog eyes from Sirius, the pleading doe eyes from James or the meek, fragile personality from Remus?

**2. Take revenge while no one could catch you. Try to avoid house points deduction from teachers. **Since their are first years, many underestimate their abilities, and the vast extensiveness that is called HOGWARTS LIBRARY!

James Potter, an extremely attractive boy with the messy hair and the crooked smirk that has made more girls swoon on their feet than Sirius would have liked to admit, not even the older girls could resist James' smirk, or the aforementioned pleading big brown doe eyes that followed afterwards if the smirk didn't work. If you add those Tranfiguration grades to the blender, if McGonagall's praises in class was anything less of an indication, and the seeker fast reflexes, with just the right amount of Gryffindor courage...

Well, James Potter has made a lot of little match sticks transform into sharp needles, and with the helpful help of Remus Lupin, fly every painfully into their opponent's oblivious skin.

Speaking of Lupin...

Brief biography: Remus Lupin, Hufflepuff, intelligent, absolutely marvelous at Charms, nice, timid at times, very open to new things and new people, has a photographic memory, loyal and, lastly, the proud holder of the fourth place in the Hogwarts student list of Top 10 People That Could Beat You To A Pulp If You Get Onto Their Bad Side that gets updated every month.

Then there is Sirius Black.

"Sirius is such a sweet little boy," as the people in his class or house would have told you if you happen to ask them out of the blue. The teachers would tell you that he is an extraordinarily bright boy capable of great many things. If you ask the bullies however, they would either run right in the other direction or refuse to answer and probably hex you right on the spot.

The Black family is renowned for its dark nature and ways, if you add extreme blood supermancy to the mix, the result would probably end up a lot darker than you would have liked, hence the name.

Sirius has been taught the old pure-blood traditions ever since he could read. Knowledge is knowledge, no matter how tedious it was taught. Besides, it also gave young Sirius a chance to read up on hexes and jinxes so he could be prepared to avoid them in the future, his parents giving him approving glances and proud smiles whenever they caught him with a book like that in hand was an added bonus.

Let's give a three minute silence for the fate of the bullies in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Actually, let's make that five minutes mourning, we still have _him_ to reintroduce.

Every time a student sprouted green hair, boils, started to talk the habitat of kangaroos and pandas at the top of their lungs, doing a jittery dance around the hall or burst into feathers or fur right after they had taken a drink, all teachers and students would look for a wand quickly stashed away. If they can't find one, they would all direct their glances to known trouble makers that could brew said complicated potions (not that many I assure you), and eventually to the long haired first year boy sitting alone at the ends of the Slytherin Table, trying and somehow failing to look innocent.

Slughorn was now beginning to regret allowing Severus to use the potions lab in his free time ever since the boy asked a while ago and he took pity on him due to the dormitory incident.

Of course none of the teachers could prove anything, and the four of them continued to ran havoc to anyone that had wronged them. Not one of them stomached bullying when they were a child, James due to Charlus Potter's line of work, Sirius had enough of his parents belittling the muggles, Remus had the obvious furry little problem and the running away screaming and gossiping after he had told a 'friend' thing too and Severus' father is just bigger bully that hate his very existence and tried every way to beat the magic out of him.

Everyone, including the staff, took comfort in the fact that the group of four boys knew and drew the line between pranks and harassment.

Most of the student body and teaching staff were quite happy at the current situation. Hogwarts has not been this lively in nearly 30 years, and this was a much preferred lively than what the some of the teachers had experienced. Most of the staff gave out detentions, took points, tried to catch the four boys in the act and enjoyed discussions in the staff room about the next bully that fell into the quagmire that is revenge. By the rate they are going, the boys would soon need a name for themselves.

But Albus Dumbledore was very concerned. The first full moon of the school year had passed a couple of days ago, poor Remus is still looking quite pale and sickly, and his friends have noticed, if the concerned glances around the hallways and tables are of any sort of clue. Dumbledore wonders of the powerful friendship those four have is strong enough to endure that revelation that would surely happen one way or another.

Albus allowed himself a small smile as he watched on with amusement from the high table. It seemed, once again, Cornelia Ashford did not learn her lesson on the importance of not calling someone a mudblood and was forced to tango around the four tables with the much obliged Gilderoy Lockhart. He could see Severus hide his smirk behind his pumpkin juice goblet.

The friendship between the four of them would endure, perhaps even grow stronger because of Remus' _illness. _Sirius Black and James Potter all have their sense of justice and sympathy, and if his eyes were to be believed and the ministry files to be trusted, Remus is going to have company in the Shrieking Shack sometimes in the future. Albus chuckled quietly and asked if Professor Flitwick could pass the Yorkshire pudding, m_aybe my worries are unfounded after all._ Just then, the great Albus Dumbledore discovered something that is even better than Sherbet Lemons.

_Oh my, perhaps I should ask Mr Snape to brew me one of those dancing potions. Miss Ashford look absolutely fabulous._

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><p><strong>Christmas<strong>** and secrets in the next chapter or two. I believe this time the Marauders is going to be quite different. To me, pranks and bullying are too very different things and it is very easy to not distinguish the thin line between the two. I couldn't stomach bullying, three years of that does that to you, and the Marauders in the books are just like bullies. No wonder Severus turned to the dark. Lily obviously didn't help the situation much either.**

**Pay attention to detail, is my advice to all of you reading. **

**Do any of you have any suggestions on what to call Severus Animagud form? Or what his form could be. I have something bu I am not so sure about it. It has to be black though, and preferably something that could fly. Review please! **

**I don't know how old Gilderoy Lockhart is, so I am making him couple of years older than Severus and the Gang.**


	4. Merry Christmas

**Chapter 4: Merry ****Christmas**

**Warning: ****This story may contain traces of: OOC-ness, spoilers, tortures, magical spells, AU, swords, powerful spells, badly written but still very awesome duels, family, severitus, rambling author notes and minor character bashing****. Engage at your discretion.**

**THE OTHER WARNING: This author is currently not very busy, bored out of her mind and suffers from severe cases of bad humor. Take the WARNING seriously, just not the author in general.**

**Enjoy**

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><p>Christmas at Hogwarts was always a lavish affair, especially in the years since Albus Dumbledore had been appointed Headmaster. It was hard to say if the infectious festivity and over-abundance of decorations was due to the fact he didn't want the children boarding over the holidays to feel as if they were missing out or if it was just that it was his favorite time of year. Most agreed that it was probably a little of both. Maybe not a <em>little<em> bit.

Twelve magnificent fir trees were dotted about the great hall, fat flakes of snow falling gently from the enchanted ceiling as Flitwick decorated the trees with artistic flicks of his wand. Holly and mistletoe hung from the walls and were strung in thick steamers above the tables, though due to the small numbers, only the head table would be used for the next two weeks, both professors and students mingling together.

Floating candles were visible through the soft fall of snow, blazing like small stars as the flakes vanished just before they hit the table. Several students moved around, helping various professors set up the hall. The air was thick with magic. Glittering icicles hung at strategic points and certain bunches of mistletoe were charmed to follow anyone unfortunate enough to walk under them until said person found someone willing to kiss them.

Laughter rang out around the hall from students and teachers alike as the decorating continued. Their combined efforts were a thing of beauty.

But Severus Snape felt quite uneasy.

He was one of only two Slytherins that had opted to stay over the Christmas break. That should have been a weight off his mind. He only had one person to avoid for the next two weeks and if they tried anything, it would be a fair fight. The thought of having access to the common room and not having to sneak into his dorm at night without having to bring half the storeroom of the hospital wing with him should have filled him with joy.

Maybe it would have if the person staying hadn't been Bellatrix Black.

Bellatrix is, as quoted by pretty much everyone, "the quiet-BATS-HIT-INSANE girl," even her sisters had stopped arguing about it in her defense. Bellatrix could be called pretty and attractive by many of the male student population and many Slytherin boys had managed to summon up the much needed courage to go to her, to either ask her out, or one of her sisters due to that Bellatrix Black has sibling over-protection down to her job description. But many of said Slytherins boys had found out, after a talk from Bellatrix, that she is _this_ close to falling down towards the canyon that is INSANITY!

Unfortunately for Severus, she also had a rather big and very unhealthy obsession/affection to him.

It all started when Rabastan Lestrange knocked into her on her way back Charms, she was about ready to curse his behind off when Severus Snape calmly picked up her books, fized her bag and threw some fuzzy green stuff in a large jar at Lestrange's head (it is just very very old seaweed, eel's eyes and fire drake urine all mixed into one). Lestange ended up in hospital wing for a week and Severus received the results he had been expecting, and the very unwanted following of Bellatrix Black, and with it, the rest of the Black sisters.

Severus sighed a gazillion time that day, Christmas was supposed to be happy! He could lose Bellatrix in the sea of students everyday, but now the only chance he have of surviving was lock himself down in the dungeons with his potions and never come back up. His dorm was just too close to the Slytherin common room for soundproofing to work. And Bellatrix singing drunk was as good as a banshee on a bad morning, with out of water mermaids as the back choir.

After much avoidance of the wild haired girl, he finally poked his head out of the potions lab professor Slughorn allowed him to use. Maybe he could have enough quiet time to find Remus, drag him to the dungeons and camp out there until everyone gets back.

Severus gritted his teeth, and set out for the extremely difficult journey to the Great Hall. _Please don't let her find me,_ was the only thing on his mind.

_To the Great Hall..._

The rest of the students had left that morning and Dumbledore had decreed that the remaining children would assist in the preparations. To promote inter-House unity, he'd said. There were only two Gryffindors—a seventh year named Kingsley Shacklebolt and Peter Pettigrew. Remus had tried to talk to him but he was painfully shy and blushed to the roots of his mousy brown hair whenever he approached. Why does everything about that Perrigrew remind him of a rat?

Apart from the Gryffindors, there were two Hufflepuffs, four Ravenclaws and two Slytherins. Remus was glad of the last for Severus' sake, even if the other Slytherin was the infamous Bellatrix Black. It was quite unlike any Black to stay back for the holidays but it didn't worry him unduly. Sirius went home for Christmas. It seemed that the hexes Sirius used to ward off the bullies had reached his mother's ears, which resulted in his increase in allowance, his parents' approving words in a letter, and the non-existing Howler that would obviously be on his table if Sirius had sorted into any other house other than Slytherin, or to some extent Ravenclaw.

Sighing, he watched Xenophilius Lovegood and Kingsley mess about with the floating candles, getting them to spell out things that Remus felt sure Professor McGonagall wouldn't approve of while Pettigrew egged them on. He put in his token protest before returning to his own thoughts. He hadn't seen Severus at all today. And wonders if he holed himself down in the potions lab again, creating something nasty that could make people dance around the hall.

Just then a cheer went up, startling him out of his depressing contemplation. The hall was finished and they were all released to get ready for dinner. Black was the first one out, not that it was any great surprise. She looked like she smelled something rotten. Stretching, Remus looked around the great hall and couldn't prevent the smile from hijacking his lips. Christmas at Hogwarts was always amazing. It was so easy to get used to all this, to start taking it for granted but there was always something about Hogwarts that made it all fresh and new again.

That was real magic. Feeling his dreary mood lift slightly, Remus grinned at his friends. For now, he decided to focus on enjoying the holiday and not on things he couldn't change, like the full moon tonight. He worked the stiffness out of his joints while walking out of the great hall, determined to drag Severus out of the potion inflamed hole he had been hiding in.

Fortunately, he never got his wish.

With a great thud elbow, fist and head collided, the sandy haired boy immediately started apologizing while the rather pale boy's hand flew to the bump on his head, now hidden by his long, slightly greasy hair. Here is a lesson kids: do not chant _Please don't let her find me_, while walking head down, and look where you are going while you fling your arm around, trying to working out the stiffness in your shoulder. Elbows and fists connecting with heads can be quite painful.

"Oh Merlin, I am so sorry Severus!" Remus cried, eyes wide and shocked.

"You can pack quite a punch Remus, good thing I have a hard head, what have you got under there?" Severus waved off the apology with a small smile. He had suffered worse at his father's hands, but still, that had _hurt!_

"Nothing much really," Suddenly uneasy and not very sure he could lie his way out, at least not to a Slytherin, as they are known for their ability to deceit and detect deceit, "my dad used to teach me how to box for a while, but then mum went ballistic about that is not how gentlemen behaves, so we had to stop. Guess the basics are still in my bones and muscles."

Severus spared him that small smile again as they made their way to the library, hoping to avoid Bellatrix Black along the way, "I didn't care much for boxing, though I did do gymnastics whenever they ran free clinics around where I lived. I love doing somersaults."

Remus laughed, "My mum is very protective so she freaks every time I do something even remotely dangerous. So that's why she quit the boxing lessons."

"How come?"

Remus shifted restlessly, a movement that did not go unnoticed by Severus. He couldn't let the other know that the reason his mother feared him learning those things is that he could use it to hurt the other boys around his neighborhood while they are bullying him. Even in a human form, werewolves does have better reflexes and strengths than the average man, including scent and sight, "Don't know, she said there is a really naughty boy that tried to hit everyone with his fists back when she was younger and living in London. She didn't like fighting much at all."

"Oh? Then does she know about our current...predicament?" Severus shot him a narrowed look, lips twitching.

"What she doesn't know won't hurt her," Remus replied, "but using the levitation charm on sharp needles to jab into other people's skin does not count as fighting!" He continued haughtily.

Severus chuckled, "whatever you say Remus. But don't blame me if you mother ran screaming at you because of all the things you did at Hogwarts." He finished at a sing song pitch.

"Prat."

"At your service, Mr Lupin." Severus ducked quickly as Remus swatted him with a arm.

"Say, Remus, do you want to spend the night in my rooms? I think the oh so emptiness of the warm Hufflepuff common room must be rubbing off of you. And if I have to endure Bellatrix singing at the top of her lungs because there is no other person to stop her, you have to suffer through it with me." Severus asked, once he came back up.

Remus shifted again, definitely restless now, "No thanks Sev, I'll survive and I would prefer to have a quiet Christmas where my innocence is still intact." He tried to flash a reassuring smile, but didn't notice how Severus' black eyes narrowed oh so slightly.

"You are meeting with Madam Pomfrey then? I heard there is a flu outbreak down near where the Hufflepuffs are." Severus asked, and watched as Remus heaved a barely detectable sigh of relief, thanking his lucky stars that Lady Luck is on his side for once.

"R-right, I'm supposed o go to her before the sunsets, she hates it when anybody disrupts her sleep, for the pepper up potions, just in case something happens." Remus tried smiling again, and Severus pieced the information together, it has been several months since the four of them became friends, almost like brothers, and wonders how he could have missed _that. _It is peculiar how none of them has seen Remus anywhere when there is a gigantic full moon in the sky.

"Well, go on then, Madam Pomfrey is not someone you want to cross with." Severus gave a half smile and watched Remus gratefully run off while he stayed and looked out the window. The sun had just set, its bright orange light still peaked around the heavy clouds.

He could see the full moon taking shape in the distance, he opened the window, and jumped out. Following the hurried footsteps of the Mediwitch and the werewolf, to the Shrieking Shack.

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><p><strong>Tomorrow, or the day after, is the first full moon we'll get to see with Remus, and the reason how Severus had figured out his secret so early on in the game. And guaranteed, he is not alone. Though I really need somebody reading to answer the questions below. I am desperate! <strong>

**Concerning Lily, she will play a role, but I am not going to make her a goddess like figure in Severus' life, because one of the reason he worshiped her was because the freakin' Marauders were throwing hexes at him at every chance and she is the only friends he had. Obviously we don't have that here, so Lily will not be that radiant in Severus' eyes. OK she won't be radiant at all in his eyes as the reason for that will be in, roughly, chapter 8.**

**Pay attention to detail, is my advice to all of you reading. **

**Do any of you have any suggestions on what to call Severus Animagus form? Or what his form could be. I have something but I'm not so sure about it. It has to be black though, and preferably something that could fly. Review please!**


	5. Shrieking Shack

**Chapter 5: Shrieking Shack****  
><strong>

**Warning: ****This story may contain traces of: OOC-ness, spoilers, tortures, magical spells, AU, swords, powerful spells, badly written but still very awesome duels, family, severitus, spouts of random insanity now and again, rambling author notes and minor character bashing****. Engage at your discretion.**

**THE OTHER WARNING: This author is currently not very busy, bored out of her mind and suffers from severe cases of bad humor. Take the WARNING seriously, just not the author in general.**

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><p>Remus Lupin was very grateful for the unnecessary bed placed in the main room of the Shrieking Shack.<p>

It's a heavily damaged four poster, with a leg or two missing, chipped headboard and scraped posts. The sheets were rough and the pillow had already been torn into scraps of cloths and feathers that looked almost no different to the drown dust blanketing the shack. Remus took off his shoes and outer cloak, they were his last ones, he could not risk tearing them again, and threw them haphazardly on the floor. It had been fun to watch needles pierce other people's skin, but it's diabolical when he had to suffer the same fate.

He heaved a small sigh and sank back into the sheets. He hoped with all his heart that he had gotten away with lying to Severus just then in the corridor. Lying to a Slytherin was generally one thing everybody knows that you just don't do. Since people from other houses don't usually associate with Slytherins, and the snakes deceiving among themselves occurs everyday, there was not much to worry about.

But since Severus Snape was currently Remus' one of three friends and the only one in their little group that could match his debating and studying habits, it felt really really wrong lying to him. Not to mention Severus was one of the best Slytherin out there, which means he was a practically lie detector and a deceiving machine. At least to the 96% of the student body.

The fact that he couldn't help but feel Severus had figured him out long ago did not quell his unease anymore a acromantula in a china shop would just stop when you tell it to.

Hopefully he won't have to spin some sort of excuse/sob story tomorrow if Sev caught him in the infirmary, if the Slytherin haven't already. Sometimes he had to remind himself to relax and just forget about everything that has nothing to do with the current situation.

The current situation was for him to wait for the full moon to stop eating the raspberry scones at a tea party with the stars and the clouds and get on with transforming him into a ravenous beast. The waiting was giving him a huge migraine and not helping him in anyway what so ever with the current situation.

Remus heaved another sigh. He should have gotten used to this by now, the waiting, the loneliness. He had more than once wanted his three friends to know his deepest and darkest secret, but that idea was nipped in the bud as soon as it made itself known. There had been many cases of him telling a 'friend' about his curse and they either ran away screaming bloody monster or ran away screaming his secret that the top of their lungs to anyone within earshot. Then he and his parents would have to move house. Again.

He didn't understand why prejudice existed, why did people call him a monster when he's only a small boy caught in a bad situation? He's just a boy, a normal boy that has friends and play pranks and lose house points, a normal boy that changed into a monster every month. A monster that still wants a friend.

For once, for this one time only, he finally asked something from Father Christmas. His family had struggled through every holiday, trying to make him feel happy and child-like. But Remus was very mature for his age and did not complain when he had gotten beautifully handmade but still rather shabby gifts compared to the other children's shiny new toys. He never asked for things people could not or would not gift him, but for just this once, he asked for something.

He learned long ago to make the best out of anything, but this time, he finally asked something that Father Christmas and another person thinks was long overdue.

He asked for a companion, a friend, a guide, a guard to help him through his werewolf frenzy moments. To let him run wild but also keep him in check, to make him tame in his rampant hours. He finally mustered enough courage to ask the wish the he desired for a long long time to the stillness of the rusty and stale air.

Father Christmas heard his wish, but did not grant it. Because Remus made his wish a little too late...

It was already here.

A sudden canopy of noise, something whipped through one of the three boarded up windows in the main room, startling Remus out of the bed and scrambling madly for his wand in the midst of the black fabric on the dusty and broken floor. When he finally found the damned stick, he rose up and faced the loud adversary.

Only to get the greatest shock of his life thus far.

The thing that broke through the previously closed window was not a drunken teenager in a dare, not a grouchy new caretaker of the Hogsmeade grounds, not some curious foreign bloke just having a look around, or even human.

It was a raven.

A large glistening black raven with a wingspan that trumped most eagles and hawks stood on a demolished dresser, stretching its impossibly large wings, tainting the glossy feathers blue and violet with the weak light the night allowed this part of the world to have. Sharp beak and sharper feathers, Remus gulped when he saw the slice marks the bird made when it came crashing in.

"Hello," Remus whispered nervously. The bird could make a good companion to a wolf, but an eleven year old boy?

The raven inclined his head, he caught a glimpse of a pair of gleaming black eyes and wondered briefly about where had he seen another pair like that before. The eyes were so cold, like black tunnels, with an odd violet glint at the end. He made a note to bring candles next month, in the bad lighting he couldn't decipher much at all. If the raven was still here next time he came.

Remus beckoned with his hand for the raven to come closer, and it did, surprisingly. It glided to his lap without fully opening its large wings and allowed Remus to brush his fingers across its black feathers, mindful of the sharp knife blade like edges.

He brushed away a stray tear in his eyes with his other hand, "Thank you," Remus whispered. The raven gave him a curious look, as if asking why. "You see, I made a Christmas wish, for the first time. I asked Father Christmas to bring me a companion to help me through the times when I'm actually a werewolf. Thank the gods he listened tonight." He wiped more tears away from his eyes, the raven scooped closer to his body, as perhaps a way of comfort.

"So who are you then? I doubt you are an actual raven, as not any species I've read have knife blade feathers, magical or not," He gave a week chuckle while the bird glared, again, that look was so similar! Remus knew the person's name, it was on the tip of his tongue and the foremost of his minds, he just couldn't place it. "So an Animagus then?" He asked, hoping for an answer.

There's a pause, a hesitation to answer on the black bird's part, then finally it nodded. Remus felt himself smiling, werewolves don't hurt animals, so animagi were safe from its jaws, but the risk... "Again, thank you, for taking this strange sort of an adventure for me." The bird gave him that look again, looked behind him at the now broken window, shrieked a warning call and flew off towards the cross beams.

Finally the tea party was over, who knew the moon takes so long in just smelling the aroma of Earl Greys and peeling the skin off marble pastries. Well, the Sirius star's lemon scone leaves a lot to be desired, Orion star's chocolate sponge cakes were not that much better. Thus earning the lecture of the importance of baking at the right temperature and not going nuts with the sprinkles.

Remus breathed heavily, gathering as much of the dusty oxygen and the raven's scent in the room as possible, forcing his brain to label that scent as a companion or a friend's in such a short period of time so as to not let the wolf attack his 'savior,' in a manner of speaking.

Remus groaned and fell off the bed onto the dirty floor, and groaned again. His body was rigid and shaking tremendously. His back arched, as he grew longer and broader and fur sprung from his skin, claws ripped from his fingers and his teeth lengthened into pure, sharp canines.

A werewolf in all its horrendous glory now stood in the middle of the Shrieking Shack, jaw open and showing its fangs, daring anyone to come close.

A huge growling werewolf, who scanned the room with amber eyes that focused only on hunt and bite and kill... but when its eyes looked up and met a pair of violet black ones that looked back calmly, the werewolf's single mindedness wavered, and he suddenly looked uncertain.

The raven jumped down from the beam, black eyes asking if the Remus inside the wolf still remembered. It softly pecked its muzzle, brushed its wings across its chest, as if reassuring that the humanity inside the wolf could trust the bird to keep it in line. The wolf blinked and inhaled, catching something familiar with the scent. Of finally a companion in all those lone years, of a friend.

_A friend..._

The wolf bowed its head, showing it recognized the raven for who it was meant to be. The bird pecked at him again and motioned him to the exit out of the house.

The wolf was finally out of its cage and into the wild freedom of the night. The ethereal light of the pale flat moon, the scent of grass beneath its paws. It looked up again, the last shreds of Remus' conscience echoing in his mind, of not wanting to hurt the innocent, confirming that the raven was still with the wolf. The black bird finally opened its wings to the fullest, a silhouette against the beautiful moon, warning and showing off its knife blade feathers.

The wolf howled once to the sky, unleashing his sorrow upon the moon, giving it wings and fly away and leave the bad feelings behind. When nothing was left but the joy and wonder, and carried it with everything it has, as it ran beneath the moon into the thick forest, and into the dawn hours of the next day. For the first time in a long while, the wolf, and the human inside it, was undeniably happy under the spells of the beautiful full moon.

Because, for the first time in a long while, they were no longer alone.

(^%^)

The next morning came, Remus woke up on the damaged bed in the Shrieking Shack. He surveyed the room in close scrutiny. There weren't any destroyed dressers and banisters to speak of, well not anymore than last month's. Beside the painful ache all over his boy that a night under the full moon always gave him, there were no visible gashes or bloody marks on his person. But how?

He doesn't remember anything from a full moon, as was the curse of lycanthropy. Sometimes it was really annoying when you killed one of your bad tempered aunt's dog and she blames it all on you and wants an apology along a month of slave work while knowing full well that you can't control anything you do once the bloody full moon is up and finished arguing over raspberry pie with another random star.

He shifted his arms and felt something softer than the rough cloth that served as the mattress. With great difficulty he pulled it out from its hiding place with his other arm, wincing as he did so. It's a black feather, long and glossy, with sharp edges that most definitely could be used as a weapon, if the situation calls for it. Then he remembered, the raven.

Then Remus smiled, his mind finally stopped worrying over his confusing pitiful state of existence as he toyed the feather between his fingers, mindful of the sharp edges and corners.

_Thank you,_ he thought, a week show if gratitude for the animagus that helped him, whoever he is.

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><p><strong>Guess who? Have any of my readers seen <em>Rise of the Guardians.<em> Yes? Father Christmas is like North, he listens to children's Christmas wishes and grants them in the best of his abilities. I know ravens are not that big like I described, but hey this is Hogwarts and this is my story, I do whatever I want, within reason of course, but still! Magic!**

**Pay attention to detail, is my advice to all of you reading.**

**Do any of you have any suggestions on what to call Severus Animagus form? Review please!**


	6. Summer Wars

**Chapter 6: Summer Wars****  
><strong>

**Warning: ****This story may contain traces of: OOC-ness, spoilers, tortures, magical spells, AU, swords, powerful spells, badly written but still very awesome duels, family, severitus, spouts of random insanity now and again, rambling author notes and minor character bashing****. Engage at your discretion.**

**THE OTHER WARNING: This author is currently not very busy, bored out of her mind and suffers from severe cases of bad humor. Take the WARNING seriously, just not the author in general.**

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><p>In the wee hours of a perfectly normal morning, in a perfectly normal manor house that is perfectly normal for old pure-blood families to use, in the middle of a perfectly normal summer holiday for perfectly normal magical children, something terrible and horrific for one and perfectly normal for the other occupants of said perfectly normal manor is happening.<p>

There was screaming, a loud shriek that's either the result of an hour of the Cruciatus Curse, or something perhaps even worse. The screaming was horrible, like banshees were trying to sing with Bellatrix Black while the Dark Lord Voldemort was demolishing the Hogwarts castle with only his sharp nails and a packet of werewolf fangs. It's a never ending screech that could scare the living daylight out of any sane 250 year old and below.

Most of the occupants of Prince Manor only blinked, looked up, gave a second thought to the mad screaming, and went right back to whatever they were previously doing.

Severus Snape dropped three mistletoe berries into the bubbling cauldron in front of him, breathed a sigh of relief when the aging potion turned sparkling blue and not some other ghastly color. He had once though that having his three friends with him through out the boring and long summer holidays would be a perfectly alright and righteously fun.

Now, he wished he could go back in time and knock some sense into his twelve years and 3 months old self. What in his brilliant potions making mind ad he been thinking. Allowing _those_ two into his house?

_Who is it this time?_ He thought. _I heard so much of Potter and Black's screams lately I couldn't even tell who's who anymore. I really hope Potter have enough sense in his Gryffindor mind to not mess with Black's precious hair. _

"JAMES POTTER, YOU GET BACK HERE THIS INSTANT! HOLD STILL SO I CAN PROPERLY KILL YOU! YOU BASTARD HOLD STILL!" Someone screeched in the distance. _Black it is then._

When Severus had made a careless remark in the safety of his dormitory room, with the other three present and eating cauldron cakes, about spending the summer together at his often than not empty manor house; he most certainly did not expect a bloody war every morning after breakfast!

It all started when Sirius Bloody Black insinuated that James Freaking Potter couldn't pull a decent prank to save his life, not exactly in that context. It had escalated to a banter that lasted well through the night and kept almost all of the manor's occupants, house elves portraits and all, awake that night. The next morning, James Potter declared war on Sirius Black by dumping a jar of molded cheese onto Black's precious Quidditch supplies. So the play of Chaos and Pandemonium raised its not so welcomed curtains.

"Somebody help! The mutt is coming, the mutt is catching up!" James Potter shrieked as he raced down the hall, dangerously close to Severus' private potions laboratory.

It's a very good thing that students are not allowed to use magic during the holidays, even though the ministry couldn't trace the spells done in Prince Manor's iron hide wards. Severus had put his foot down in the beginning to stay away from his potions lab and the library, and no permanently damaging the property either. He couldn't stop the war, but he could do damage control.

They didn't expect him to help, it's against his morals. But it didn't mean he won't.

_What had Potter done this time that would warrant such hideous screaming?_

"Quiet James! Severus is brewing and you know how he feels about this war between you and Sirius. Haven't you learned to not disturb him when he's creating potions?" He could hear Remus hiss quite loudly as he half dragged James by his ear along the brightly lit hallways while Severus poked his head out of his thick lab door.

_It seems Remus is _finally_ having a nervous breakdown. _

The Princes were a very very old pure-blood line, descendants of Rowena Ravenclaw and perhaps Salazar Slytherin. They value knowledge, learning and masks above all else and does not bat an eyelash to killing or torturing innocent people to get what they wanted. They were a typical Dark family, darker than the Malfoy's even, and older and even more prestigious than the Black's. The male members were actually princes once, before London bridge came crashing down around the wizarding world.

If there is one thing Severus Snape does not want to become, it's Dark. He is not against Dark Magic, no qualms of killing for say dragons to get its scales and skin, but he would never kill nor torture just for the sake of it.

Due to the Princes' search for knowledge and maybe conquest along the way, the manor had a vast library tat could only be rivaled by that of Hogwarts'. It was something Remus heavily admired, something Sirius did not care about, something Severus loves and something James swore never to step foot in other than for quite like it, it's private and it provided a good hideout for the two people not included in the prank war from the war participant's blood thirsty rampages.

Which was where he is heading right now, to escape one of Sirius Black's loud blood thirsty rampages.

"I know that Sirius is almost here but there is nothing he, you or anyone can do that would make me get inside that paper infested room!" James is really pushing the boundaries of 'whispering.'

He could almost see Remus' hard exasperated glare as he made his way up the stairs. Seriously, how did Sirius not find James with the volume they are 'whispering'? Do they want to be killed? Severus wondered if the sorting hat had made the right decision at their first Welcoming Feast. Again.

"It's not like it's Azkaban in there! Come one James! The library has the thickest doors and no violence was allowed in there! Come on James. Go in or you'll die!" He could hear the urgency and the fed-up-ness in Remus' soft tone, "Not that I would complain." He could hear mutters afterwards. So the banshee he had heard on the other side of the manor, disturbingly near the kitchens, was actually Sirius Black? _I guess the ability to produce abnormal volume of noise must run in the Black family._

"James-" Remus began again, but was pleasantly interrupted by a: "I FOUND THE SILVERWARE, PREPARE TO DIE POTTER! HAHAHAHAHA!" Severus broke into a run.

The next thing James knew he was being pushed roughly by two pairs of hands, "Black has finally found the silverware and you know how he is with my forks," Severus hissed and the other two gulped. How could they forget, black's aim is impeccable to say the least.

"Now move!" Severus hissed again, dragging all of them in before shutting the heavy doors of the library, pulling them two along until he found a secluded alcove and rounded on Potter, black eyes blazing, "What did you do?" Severus hissed.

Severus Snape is renowned in Hogwarts for his much loved and detested ability to cut down or bring up someone with his words and tone alone. Something many envied and many hated. Still, he used all he has to get what he wants, if that means ripping down a Slytherin or two from their high horse, then by all means. Right now, Remus Lupin is just glad that ability wasn't aimed at him.

Poor James though.

"I might have, um..." He stuttered nervously, hands twisting into interesting shapes in front of him.

Severus huffed, "What did you do Potter?" James winced. He must be really pissed when he willingly used their last names. That was never a good sign, as they learned quickly.

"What did you do?" Severus tried again, albeit softer this time.

James gulped, "I might have turned his hair to Gryffindor colors and his entire wardrobe to my mother's?" He tried a smile that did not look innocent at all. Severus could hear Remus bash his head onto a cushion while muttering heavy curses that could make a sailor blush. Nervous breakdown, definitely.

The one thing that could send Sirius Black into a murderous rampage that actually involved letting loose the silverware that could make every Dark Lord in existence coward in fear, was to mess with his precious black locks. As proven just around the same time Severus' words and tone ability was discovered.

"Severus, I vote we cast James into the hallway and lock ourselves in the library. I will end the war by any means possible, today," Remus muttered in between the chair cushions, completely disregarding the fear in James' hazel eyes.

Typical Remus. Spending too much time with a Slytherin to avoid a Ravenclaw and a Gryffindor's vengeful tendencies had certainly rubbed off of him. Severus shot the cushion boy an appreciative look. Self-preservation is a most valuable trait among three of the four Hogwarts Houses.

Severus leveled a glance at James, weighing the pros and cons in his mind. To throw or not to throw, that is the question. James started to sweat, he never liked that calculating glaze his father always had when he was brewing up a fitting punishment for young _Jamie,_ his hand started to inch around a bookcase for leverage.

Finally Severus decided, "Good idea Remus. Give me a hand with this though, will ya?" James' arms flew around the bookcase but before he could grab a strong hold Remus was there, half dragging and half carrying him to the door.

Severus opened the gateway to either safety or a premature death, shot a trademark Malfoy diabolical smirk at James' horrified face, "You shouldn't have messed with Sirius' precious hair. Now you'll pay the price. On three." Severus' thin hands came around James' other trembling arm. Remus nodded, amber eyes amber eyes dancing with amusement and relief, of a good show and a quiet rest of the summer.

"One!" Severus called, James started squirming. He's stronger than the two of them and could get away, given enough time.

"Three!" James blinked, his brain stopped working for a split second, his mind went blank. The next thing he knew, he was in the middle of the dreaded empty hallway.

"Be careful Jamie dear, I heard Sirius got all the forks from the house elves," Severus offered him a small smile that completely failed to look innocent. "Good luck!" James heard Remus calling in the back ground to "close the door! He's coming!"

Severus gave him another traitorous smile and the heavy door of the library and James' life slammed shut, the bolt sliding in place. James' eyes widened in horror, shock and disbelief. But before he could bang and beg on the entrance to be allowed to keep his pitiful life...

"I GOT YOU NOW POTTER!" There came Sirius Black, hands full of forks and knives 'looted' from the kitchen. Gryffindor red hair, plastered in bright gold flakes, in a Victorian Era glaring green dress that must have belonged to James' old fashioned mother, clashing horribly with everything around him.

Sirius Black smiled, the infamous madness of the Blacks gathering in his storming grey eyes, "DIE, POTTER!" He screeched and lunged. James screamed and the two 'innocent' bystanders snickered and mourned behind their thick books and for a friend that is very much lost.

All in all, it was a perfectly normal summer for four perfect normal trickster children that is soon to be the famous group named the Marauders.

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><p><strong>Let's give a three minute silence for the most honorable eleven year old boy that is James Charlus Potter. He is bright, good looking ,and so not very dead. But close, very close.<strong>

**I would go on a rampage too if someone dyed my precious hair Gryffindor colors. The silverware thing is taken from Black Butler, with Sebastian Michaelis' very awesome killing with cutlery. This chapter is just mainly there to remind you that they are still young and 'innocent.' But not for much longer. *evil smirk* Concerning Remus' furry little problem, the Princes were very rich and had a gigantic property, Severus brew potions practically everyday to starve off boredom, do I really have to spell the whole thing out for you? **

**I think I put too much capital letters and exclamation marks.**

**Pay attention to detail, is my advice to all of you reading.**

**Do any of you have any suggestions on what to call Severus Animagus form? Review please!**


	7. Lily Flower

**Chapter 7: Lily Flower**

**Warning: ****This story may contain traces of: OOC-ness, spoilers, tortures, magical spells, AU, swords, powerful spells, badly written but still very awesome duels, family, severitus, spouts of random insanity now and again, rambling author notes and minor character bashing****. Engage at your discretion.**

**THE OTHER WARNING: This author is currently not very busy, bored out of her mind and suffers from severe cases of bad humor. Take the WARNING seriously, just not the author in general.**

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><p>The second year of Severus Snape's Hogwarts education was relatively peaceful.<p>

The pranks continued, but pretty much all of them were harmless and even the victim walked away laughing at their own embarrassing antics. Everyone knew now to leave the four of them alone as to not get another headful of James Potter's carefully transfigured needle traps.

Despite the four of them wrecking havoc everyday and Filch running around trying to catch them in the act, Hogwarts has entered an era of peace and prosperity never before since, as Sirius wisely stated in Severus' room before getting whacked in the head by Remus' Transfiguration notebook.

After the all over the place engagement party celebrating the proposal of Bellatrix Black and Rodulphos Lestrange, which got Severus squished between two cushions and the soon to be bride. He was pleasantly surprised to find a couple of Ravenclaws and even Hufflepuffs mingling in the Slytherin common room and set himself a new task to figure out what was going on.

What he found almost shocked him to death.

Slytherin were being accepted, even welcomed by the other three houses. Everyone else looked at Severus' group and thought, _we can actually coexist, look at that! Lets try it too! _Hence...

Slytherin were being accepted, even welcomed by the other three houses. Andromeda Black started to sit at the Hufflepuff table more and more with a well-built boy by the name of Ted Tonks. Bellatrix only shrieked in the common rooms once and shoved a wand to Tonks' throat and threatened him that "if my sister gets hurt by your watch, there won't be a thing for your muggle parents to bury in remembrance of your unfortunate demise."

After the extreme measures of promising to the protective older sister that he would take care of her little sister, Ted Tonks went all out to placate the only slightly insane Bellatrix soon-to-be-Lestrange. Even trying to brew those hair changing potions that Severus was so famous for. It was fun for a time to see the other three people in his group getting pranked for a change, though less fun when he was being chased around the school because of the potions.

He'll get back to Bellatrix, eventually. He hoped.

Avery and Mulciber did not avoid homework like plague anymore, as Severus soon discovered by hiding in an armchair buried by books, but they actually took time off playing exploding snap to study in the library from time to time, where the older Hufflepuffs gladly accepted them and allowed their very much hidden academic values to show through. Rabastan Lestrange was seen on more than once occasion escorting an attractive lady of the other house to class, and snogging them senseless in the process. Lucius Malfoy, as his mentor, did nothing to stop him.

Slytherin was no longer the isolated House of the lot anymore. Its high reputation tarnished by Tom Marvolo Riddle 30 years ago was slowly rebuilding itself, rising back to the noble house it once was. Tall and proud.

All because of four first years the managed to keep their precious friendship through the help of secret passages, their wits, and a silvertongue.

There's just one problem for Slytherin House, or perhaps to Severus specifically.

Gryffindor' flower.

Gryffindor was the only House that refused to see the changes in the snakes behavior. The Slytherins were all being more open, letting down their masks for once in their lives, helping other people when required, did not go sprouting blood purity at the top of their lungs anymore. Everyone confusingly welcomed the change in their behavior, all but the house of the lion.

Gryffindors point blank refused to believe that the slimy snakes were being more civil and open and grasped every opportunity to cast hexes and jinxes in any snake that crossed their path. Their beliefs firmly planted by their parents, and the muggleborns were all so excited to be in the wizarding world they'll believe everything the magical folk told them.

One such person was Lily Evans.

Severus moved to Prince Manor when he was nine, forever grateful for leaving Spinner's End and his father's harsh belt forever. The only thing he remotely regretted was leaving behind Lily, his only friend he had met at the local playground when he was sic. it only took six months for him to discover she's a witch.

He was overjoyed at that time, excited at confining and explaining to a magical being about wizardry and spells and books and Hogwarts without the fear of his father hanging over his head. he was delighted when Lily listened to every word he had said with sole attention.

He didn't know what that attention meant until much much later.

Severus crossed to Prince Manor when he was nine, coming back to Spinner's End only a few times a year to visit his father, as his mother had asked of him. Every time he got torn and bloodied, his clothes ripped and dirties, he would always find Lily outside the house when he came out of the hovel he once called home. She would immediately drag him off to the big willow tree by the lake and force him to tell her about Prince Manor, in detail.

At first Severus thought she did not want to embarrass him by _fawning_ over his injuries, but his grandparent's Slytherin lessons caught up with him, along with all the books he had read in the vast library, he understood.

Lily did not care. Not about him, not to his measly expectations of what a friend should be. She did not care about Severus Snape. He's just a stepping stone to something higher.

He realized it too late.

Lily did not say 'hello' to him when they say each other in the corridors. Sometimes she would brush pass him,, other times she would stop and chat to Remus or James that were always with him but ignoring Severus completely. There were times when he knew she was telling James to stay away from Severus, using the word 'possessive' and 'dark' and 'useless' twice in one sentence.

Obviously she learned from the group of girls that surrounded her about Slytherins, evil and ambitious, cold and dark, practically witless. She let her guard down and wore her heart on both of her sleeves, so Severus knew.

Lily thought she could do no wrong, that she knows everything about him, that she was better than everyone else. Severus learned long ago to not put all of his eggs in one basket. Though he doesn't like eggs much, nor baskets for that matter, he much preferred cauldrons or James' cloaks or Sirius' boots which he had stolen from Lucius... Lily thought she knew it all.

Well, rude awakenings are always fun to deliver.

Lily thought he would be crawling back to her before the first month of Hogwarts was out. she didn't expect him to make friends, friends that was always with him, helping him, playing with him, pranking with him. Severus has real friends now, and doesn't need her anymore.

But her grades were slipping. She's not the best anymore, at least in her eyes. She needs Severus, to help her get better. She was Severus' only friend, others were fakes, Severus does not know, so she must tell him. She must warn him.

As I've said before, rude awakenings are always fun to deliver.

Severus smiled darkly as he walked through the half empty Charms corridor. Lily had been following him all week, trying to corner him, and it was getting really annoying. He allowed Remus to gorge himself on books, James on food, Sirius on sweets, with no rational supervision so he could get this talk over and done with.

All three of them had taken upon themselves to protect him, due to his small stature and Slytherin qualities that attract hexes like flies, not that Severus was week. they all just like to present an iron front. But now, he needs to do this alone. to clean a lily flower, or perhaps crush it underneath his feet.

"Sev!" He heard someone call, melodic and a bit high pitched, he continued walking. Not acknowledging the nickname he did not allow Lily to use. So it begins.

"Sev!" The call was more impatient this time, traveling through the corridor and drawing curious heads with it. Severus sighed again. does Gryffindors not know the definition of subtlety, or discretion? Or does Gryffindors even know what a definition is, for that matter?

"Yes, Lily?" He turned around and said, forcing a fake smile onto his face that only a handful of people in this school could tell it wasn't genuine. "How may I help you now?" He tilted his head slightly to the right, feigning a look of innocence that got him an hour of cheek pinches from the Black sisters. Damn that Lucius.

Lily Evans did not change much in the first year that Severus barely saw, unless it was in class. She had made avoiding him into an art that Avery would be proud of, though Severus was too busy making prank plans with Remus to notice much of her absence.

Her fiery red hair now the same shade as the Gryffindor common room carpet. James had chopped off a square of it with a pair of scissors to a show-and-tell session in Severus' dormitory so he knew what is color was. Her green eyes shone with relief, impatience and knowing. Her bright smile seems fake at the edges, forcefully applied onto her slightly freckled face like smudged cosmetics.

Rule number 1 of Hogwarts: Never try to trick a Slytherin.

Did Gryffindor taint Lily so much that the naturally clever witch would ignore the most important rule of them all? Hogwarts rule number one had moved up from 10th to 1st ever since the infamous Tom Riddle walked the castle halls, and was proudly upheld since.

Severus was not about to let a Gryffindor, no matter how intelligent, trick him!

"Where were you Sev? I've been looking all over!" Lily said, her lips almost forming into pouts. Impatience, her fatal flaw. One that Severus would use to its fullest extent for the course of this conversation, "And where are your buddies?"

The last sentence held a heavily scent of annoyance that Severus could easily detect, "Oh they are going to loot the kitchen for cakes. I'm going to my common room. Care to join me?"

Lily's whole face lit up with triumph and she nodded. She's not fooling anyone here, even Hufflepuffs could see through that!

"So, how was your time at Hogwarts? You fitting in OK? I barely saw you last year. Did you make any friends?" Severus asked innocently. Strange, it seems it was always him that asked these kind of questions, and never the other way around.

Lily immediately opened her mouth and started to lecture about how wonderful Gryffindor is, how well she's doing in her classes, how confusing Hogwart's stair cases were, how many friends she made that had the exact interest as her. It would have hurt Severus when she said that Marlene McKinnion was so good at Defense. But now he had Sirius and Remus and James, he no longer cared for superficial friends. Besides, Sirius could curse down a fifth year with only forks and plates. (See chapter 3)

"But they were all so boring at times, nothing exciting comes out of their mouths. James Potter this, Sirius Black that. It's nauseating to hear. I don't see why people like them anyhow," She continued to ramble on, completely oblivious to the stormy look that made itself comfortable in Severus' black eyes.

Severus gritted his teeth and managed to grind out the words without hurting himself, "Is that so?"

Lily barely spared him a glance as she babble on, "They are just a bunch of pompous gits that only cared about themselves and what they could get out of other people. Honestly I don't know why you associate with them Sev, their egos are as big as the moon. You could do so much better. Other Ravenclaws or Gryffindors perhaps, Slytherins are all dark and stupid, not that you are though..." But Severus was no longer listening.

He knew Sirius and James have a mischievous streak a mile long and half as wide. They were almost like twins separated at birth and only been reunited last year. Their relationship started slow, James' egotistical reputation precedes him, but their brotherhood was the strongest of them all.

In fact, it was only last night that Remus officially named the two of them Twins of Skulduggery, or Twins for short. Severus wanted to bash his head upon his dormitory wall at the mirrored smirk from them both.

He shuddered to think what would happen if the fourth member of their little group was someone else, someone like that spineless worm Pettigrew perhaps. Then there would be no chance to stop the pranks from turning into harassment. Remus just needs a sarcastic silvertongue by his side to put a stop of the Twins' outlandish pranks.

All four of them caused havoc regularly, they took pride in all the variations they could produce. But they were never arrogant, and doesn't have an ego as big as Lily had said.

Severus had hoped that he could continue Lily's friendship, but it seems it was not to last. But maybe it was at least some what salvageable.

"They are so full of themselves, causing mischief all over the place, not allowing us any peace. Marauders, the lost of them... Sev, are you listening to me?" Lily almost shrieked, stopping abruptly, dangerously close to the Slytherin dungeons. Hands on her hips, eyes shone with a slight indignation.

Severus turned and gave her a small smile, "Sorry, I wasn't. I'm almost to the common rooms. I thought you have something to ask me?" He remarked innocently.

Lily blinked several times before the memories came, "Oh, almost forgot. Do you want to study in the library after dinner tomorrow? I need some help with Potions, and I know you are very good at it." She tried an encouraging smile, sensing victory, "You don't have to hang around those gits anymore."

That stony expression returned to his black eyes, making them cold and downright horrifying. He smirked slightly when Lily unconsciously took a step back. Then he sobered and put on his best sneer that Bellatrix more than once exclaimed, _absolutely terrifying and downright adorable. _

He'll deal with Bellatrix later. He thinks.

"No thanks Evans. I have better things to do than try and teach you potions so you could get a good grade. You need to work for those kind of things and not expect them to be handed to you on a silver platter, " Severus' sneer too on epic proportions, looking menacing as death in the shadows cast by the poor illuminations of the dungeons.

"You are a user Lily Evans. You befriended me because I knew things you didn't, a world where you so desperately wants to be a part of. You want to be in a high place, a place of authority with actually wanting to work for it." Severus' dark eyes were on black fire.

He continued, "Your blatant hypocrisy makes me sick. I was so young and naive then that I would even think about befriending you! My friends, James, Sirius and Remus, are the real ones."

"They care for me. They want to be around me, not because of what I could do, but for who I am. The sarcastic mad hatter with an iron fork tongue and could melt fingers, that could brew dangerous potions and could spell a plate of mashed potatoes right into that Lockhart's face from the other side of the Great Hall!" He didn't know it, but Severus was shouting now.

Lily's face contorted in rage and disbelief, and maybe guilt underneath it all, Severus could tell she was gripping he wand inside her robes, " What about the Slytherins then, they are all dark lords in the making. Sooner or later they'll all turn dark!" Her screeching could easily put Bellatrix in shame.

"Your so called friends are just using you. They took pity on you, because of your drunken father and dead mother. Who would want you anyway? Best to run while you still have the chance. At least I'm telling you the truth!"

Severus answered, again, with a sneer, knowing with that volume half the house would come out running, "The very reason we Slytherins keep close together and never wear our hearts on our sleeves is standing right in front of me. Slytherins take care of each other. No matter what they thought of that person. You are in Slytherin territory right now Evans, and we have passed dozens of Gryffindors on our way here. Do you see any of them by your side?"

Lily gulped.

Severus sighed, "All I ask is for you to think about this, to look over our actions by another person's point of view, ask around if you feel the need. Just don't go screaming blatant hypocrisy in my face. I've had enough of that with my father, which of course, you didn't care to ask."

Lily tried and failed at a sneer, "What if I refuse?" She raised her wand with a slightly shaking hand.

"Then you'll find slugs coming out of your lunch tomorrow, " said an incredibly bored Sirius Black behind them two, twirling his wand absentmindedly between his fingers. James smirked while he took a bite out of a chocolate cake and spun his wand between his thumb and index fingers while Remus looked on from behind a book, amber eyes cackling with plans and spells and promises of uncomfortable lies.

"For once in my life, I agree with little Siri here, " came the slightly mad voice of Bellatrix Black soon-to-be-Lestrange, followed closely by her sisters, her fiance and half the common room. Sirius pulled off a perfect Black lopsided grin and mocked his shock.

Lily looked back and forth between the wizards and the witches and knew she was cornered. She'll honor Sev's wishes, just this once, he would be wrong of course, but she'll give it a try.

She sent an amateur glare at all of them, turned around and fled to the warm upper levels. The hordes of Slytherins disappearing too, to their common rooms

Severus called out to her retreating back, "Thank you for the name Evans! We've been thinking about out group name for a while now!"

"Name?" Sirius asked, relaxing back against the wall and lowering his wand.

Severus looked at him with his dark eyes, uncertainty and hesitation swimming behind them, suppressed but definetly there if you know where to look and how to find it. It seems Lily's words had affected him more than they thought, especially that of his parents.

James sighed, it seems he noticed it too, "Spit it out Sev."

Severus brightened slightly, "Marauders. We four are the Marauders, Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers."

"Wow Sev, you thought all that up just then? All by yourself? I applaud you." James' sarcastic compliments were interrupted by Remus' book aquating with his messy crown of hair.

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><p><strong>Do you guys even want to have a Harry Potter universe? Like the canon universe. I could, but I also won't. I know that Filth is a squib and are basically a muggle, but in this particular universe, Filch is 20 while in Harry Potter universe, he is around 40 something. Right now, Bellatrix, Andromeda and Lestrange are at their seventh year while Lucius and Narcissa are at their sixth. Voldemort's started school recruitment in Severus' sixth year rather than now.<strong>

**I like Lily, I really do. She is brave and pretty and powerful, but she is not a good friend. Severus was her freaking best friend for 6 years, sure he's been associating with the wrong people but what if Lily's rejection was the thing that pushed Severus over the line. And the rejection was worded just as bad, if not more, than what Severus said to Lily. I am sure Lily is a good girl and wonderful and loved by everyone and she is the reason Severus climbed out of the darkness, but I'm pretty sure she's also the reason he's over there in the first place.**

**Pay attention to detail, is my advice to all of you reading.**

**Do any of you have any suggestions on what to call Severus Animagus form? Review please!**


	8. Secret Telling

**Chapter 8: Secret Telling**

**Warning: ****This story may contain traces of: OOC-ness, spoilers, tortures, magical spells, AU, swords, powerful spells, badly written but still very awesome duels, family, severitus, spouts of random insanity now and again, rambling author notes and minor character bashing****. Engage at your discretion.**

**THE OTHER WARNING: This author is currently not very busy, bored out of her mind and suffers from severe cases of bad humor. Take the WARNING seriously, just not the author in general.**

**This is where we step into the quagmire that is AU-TURN-BACK-IF-YOU-MUST.**

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><p>"So what's the emergency?" Remus asked, his clever mind extremely confused as he followed Sirius to Severus' dormitory that he still shared with no one else but them.<p>

Sirius replied with a smile, "Marauders meeting, we'll probably stay up all night. James is bringing the refreshments."

Remus shook his head, sometimes he doesn't really get what's going on in that mind of Sirius'. He and Severus had gotten into long debates about the capabilities of old magic, Hogwarts and hats, which yielded non conclusion on why Sirius got sorted into the house that prides itself in the intelligence of its house members.

Sirius Black still has a long a way to go before he qualifies and graduates in the intelligence department.

He tapped his wand in the crooked brick next to the tapestry of an eagle standing on a cactus and devouring a snake, the hallway to the left of the Gryffindor common room. It slowly spun open, revealing a dusty passage way lit by ever lasting floating candles.

Sirius checked the corridor outside for any innocent personnel, clucked his tongue and pulled shut the entrance door.

It was pure accident that Sirius discovered the secret passage near the Gryffindor common room after a particular nasty episode from a fifth year Ravenclaw, his left shoulder slammed against the crooked brick, racing inside and pulling shut the door after the older boy knew what's going on.

Discovering that particular passage earned him a high five from James, a bundle of reprimand from Remus and a mouthful of quills when he walked into Severus' mad studying sessions. Then the long journey of secret passages discovery began.

Severus forced him to pay for all the quills in his mouth.

They haven't found all of the passages in the old school named Hogwarts, but they are still in second year, so they have time. Though it was a sad sad day when James Potter found the entrance to the kitchens.

"You are late," an impatient voice sounded behind the moss covered doorway when Sirius managed to push said door open.

It was quite an amusing site to behold. The tapestry of the white doe with a midnight raven was moved to the side to allow the large framed photo Severus allowed for them to decorate, technically, their room. There was a standard four poster bed to one corner, a wooden door to the Slytherin common rooms. A large wooden desk sat in front of the bed, with a small shelf of books and potions right next Severus' trunk.

James was the one that yelled out the impatient call and was now munching on an ice cream while sitting at the foot of Severus' bed, sweets, cakes and cold confectionaries surrounding him on the floor. Severus was watching the pair of them in slight confusion and amusement, a chocolate tart dirtying his elegant fingers.

"So, what are we doing?" James asked, shoving half of the cake in hand into his mouth, slightly muffling his voice. Severus shot him a glare. Remus shrugged and sat in the disgusted Slytherin's chair while he moved to sit on the desk. Sirius plopped down on the bed and stole a treacle tart right under James' cream covered nose.

James glared, Severus snorted, Remus wanted to bash his head against the wall.

"No, really, why are we here?" Severus asked, hands inching towards the vials on his shelved. Everyone here knew by now not to use the word 'serious' whenever possible. They had enough of Sirius' "No I'm Sirius" jokes to last a life time.

Sirius finally pulled off a typical Black family smirk after five months of learning from Andromeda, but quickly grew serious (ha!). "The Evans fiasco has effected us more than anyone had thought. So now we have the first, and hopefully last: Marauders' Bonding Meeting." He swept his arm wide, banging his hand against the bed post.

James snickered, Severus blinked and blanched, Remus still wants to bash his head against the wall.

The three of them that were not included in Sirius' very see-through-able plot shared a glance with each other and simultaneously half shouted, "Huh?"

Dot. Dot. Dot.

Sirius sulked. Then brightened. Then sulked again.

"I'll go first shall I?" Sirius asked and everyone else nodded. By doing so they sealed another promise, of keeping each other's promise and not freak out too much about it.

Sirius took a deep breath and changed.

It was quick, his handsome face morphed into a bear's, then James' chocolate covered ones, the gave himself a silver beard like Dumbledore's and started whacking James in the head with it and finally turned his hair into a much greasier mess like Severus' that reached now to his ankles. After he deemed he had showed off enough, he finally returned to his normal handsome self and plopped back down to the mattress, breathing heavily.

It was James that made the first reaction. He jumped right up from where he was munching on a cream biscuit, eyes wide and shinning. "You're a metamorphmagus?" He half shrieked. Remus again thanked Severus' bright mind and his lucky stars for warding the room.

A pause.

"Yes?" Sirius said hesitantly, posing it as a question than a statement.

James yanked him up, paused for another half a second, whooped at the top of his lungs and started to shake Sirius' shoulders, almost ripping his head off. Muttering about "I'm not the only one", "so awesome" and "now we can prank everyone, even the teachers!"

Remus thought he would have to do emergency operation on sewing Sirius' head back to its original position. He'll need needles and potions and threads. He thinks...

"Are you quite finished with dislocating Black's head from his shoulders, Potter? Remus is thinking about what he would need to sew his head back on, something that I do not want to see nor help," The silky voice cut a swathe through James' ramblings, which of course came to an abrupt stop.

Severus was there, calm as always, elegant fingers picking at the icing of his still uneaten chocolate cake, nonchalant and black eyes blazing with warning and slight fury. Remus was glad for the presence of the Slytherin. He could always count on the black haired boy to dampen the Twins pranking sprees whenever it got out of hand. Remus didn't want to think what would happen if the fourth position was taken by someone else, maybe even that Peter Pettigrew character. He won't be able to hold the Twins back then.

James coughed and dropped Sirius, his almost twin barely missing the half finished treacle tart.

"What is a metamorphmagus again?" Remus asked, confusion and embarrassment swimming in his amber eyes.

Another pause.

"You see Remy, every pure-blood house like the Malfoys and the Blacks and the Potters all have a special ability unique to that house. It's just a matter of when that ability would pop up. It could be a direct scion or a long long long descendent. It's random so those maggot couldn't control who got what," James ended his little speech with a knowing smile.

Remus slowly nodded, "So the Black family's ability was Metamorphism right?" Sirius grinned proudly, his heavy breathing evened out slightly and shoved a blueberry muffin in between his teeth.

"So, who's next?" Sirius asked, "Your deepest secret, only."

Damn

"Not it," he and Severus said simultaneously. Both of them snickered, James spewed colourful language.

Suddenly Sirius was yanked out off his feet, Remus was suddenly sitting on the floor with his chair all the way to the door.. Severus' quill was lifted into the air, tumbling around, flicking against Sirius' head in revenge for the whacking of the beard and finally stopping right in front of James' pulsing hazel eyes. The owner of the quill scowled deeply when all his parchment were floating around his messily organized room.

"Telekinesis, correct?" The scowl on Severus' face did not lessen, James nodded and grinned when the two poor people came sheepishly from where he left them on the floor.

The Slytherin's command was cold and dark, "Put it down." The papers and quill were still floating around the room. James grinned again and everything was returned to their rightful places. All except one.

Severus glared, James grinned, Sirius was watching the commotion like a tennis match and Remus found himself very confused.

James eyes blazed once more before dimming, the thick parchment exploded, rainy broken pieces of paper every where, but none landed on the occupants of the room, nor on the junk foods.

Severus glared harder, James mumbled something about cleaning up later. But Remus doubted that promise.

The third silence.

Now Sirius was the one that jumped up and started shaking James' head off. Severus was too busy glaring at the victim to intervene. Remus knew it was a bit of a futile thing, trying to stop them, but he tried anyway. But Sirius was a good size bigger than James and he looked pleadingly at Severus for help. The soon to be Remus' saviour sighed.

"I'm an illusionist," another glare and a sharp sentence cut right through the Twins' celebration of their new steps of pranking, Sirius dropped James on top of a stack of hard covered books that James summoned just them from the other side of the room.

Severus smiled slightly, his long hair hiding half of his face, "The funny thing is, that we have the heirs of at least three pure-blood families right in this room and I believe everyone has an ability, or a secret." The smile that was warm a minute ago, turn sinister and some other emotion Remus hadn't seen on Severus's face for a long time.

Sirius' eyes turned sheltered, "Wizards are like muggles in this regard, we don't like difference very much. They doesn't like change, either. The rest who are the same will either shun those who are different or they shower them with unnecessary attention."

Remus nodded. He had experienced different. He was a werewolf for Merlin's sake, he didn't want to remember how many so called friends he had told about his problem and they had ran away screaming monster and mommy. The only friends he had before Hogwarts were animals that loved and hated that beastie side of him.

He wondered how would his friends take it when he told them his many secrets, they all had experienced difference, so maybe they would allow him to at least finish this year first. He flited a glance to Severus sitting beside him.

His form flickered with violet and black light.

Remus hesitantly extended a hand to touch Severus' shoulder but his scarred arm went right through the spectre of Severus Snape disappeared in the same dark light.

Cue the fourth pause.

The brick door leading to the branch of secret passages was pushed open, the real Severus Snape came out, along with a bundle of new cakes and calming teas floating behind him.

"How'd you..." James whispered. Sirius was too shocked at the disappearance or that Severus Snape voluntarily brought sweets from the kitchen.

Severus answered with a smirk, "Illusionist. It's easy to look through an illusion, it always have the caster's magical light. If it's a living thing, then some part of it would always have my magical signature, for example the eyes. Illusionists can generate glamours and illusions at will, while others need years of training to do cast what they wanted other people to see."

"So your magical signature is black and purple? Never would have guessed." Severus shot him _the_ glare and James shut up.

"Illusionists were almost always animagi, since transforming to an animal is like casting a permanent glamour that seeps into your body and last how long you want." Severus smirked, dumped the looted goods onto James' lap and sat back down.

So that's why Severus could pop up out of nowhere to dump a vial of _stuff_ onto people's heads, then disappear when the furious victim blinked. It's surprising, to have an illusionist so young and so adapt at his art. Glamour and clones, illusions and tricks, illusionists are widely known as tricksters and mischief makers.

They are not at all incorrect.

But what Remus doesn't understand, was that comment about Animagi.

Could he be?

"Now we have our beloved Remus. What could he be? An elemental mage? A Charms Master? A wandless wizard?" A good natural jest, Remus could hide away his deepest secret under another one.

"I'm a Beast Master," he said, "I could talk and understand all magical creatures and animals. I used to live right in front of a forest so I knew. I always wanted to navigate the Forbidden Forest here," He finished with a slightly week smile, but did not notice the narrowed look Severus shot him.

"Let's grant your wish then Remy! As long as you take us along," Sirius gave a lop-sided grin almost identical to that of James, with only a bit more of darkness and mischief.

The Twins grinned more and relaxed against Severus' had and started to pick apart a fruit pie. Remus relaxed too, his secret was safe for a while yet, even if he had to sacrifice another to save it.

But Severus...

"That's not your deepest secret, nor your most terrifying, is it Lupin?" The cold tone of Severus Snape once again cut a bloody gash across the now relaxed atmosphere of the lone dormitory room. He hadn't heard a voice that cold directed at him for a long time, not the use of his last name as an address.

Remus gulped.

"Tell them Remus," Severus' voice was almost a whisper now, black eyes almost shining with plead. His form flickered with violet light, almost turning from black robes into sharp black feathers.

Remus sighed again, heart constricted painfully as he tried to squeeze the two words out of his mouth, "And, I'm also a werewolf." Then he waited.

The fourth silence was the painful of them all.

But the reaction was not what he expected.

Sirius face planted into a pair of Slytherin pillows, James jumped up for the second time, disturbing a plate of vanilla cookies, ran around the room, whooping at the top of his lungs. Severus smiled too, and stood up. Leaving Remus a confused mess alone with his thoughts.

James whooped again, "I was right Sirius, you own me three galleons. Ha!" Sirius threw the two gold coins at him with vehement aim, James stopped it in mid air with his palm out. Sirius cursed.

"Wait, you took a bet on whether or not I am a werewolf?" Incredulity and hilarity mixed into his shaky voice.

James scratched his head, "Well, we actually took bet on whether or not you'll actually admit it," he said sheepishly. Remus didn't know whether to laugh or cry or sigh in relief or flung a pillow into James' head, or something harder. Preferably something harder.

He looked at Severus for help choosing and support of his revenge, but the dark haired Slytherin's surprise was still to come. He shook his head, bared his shoulders, and transformed.

The black school robes melted into him, his hair fell into his eyes, his midnight eyes remained the same but his pale skin was all covered by inky blackness.

Remus always thought Animagus transformations happen in the blink of an eye, but perhaps Severus was making it deliberately slow for their viewing pleasure.

A large raven with wingspan at least three feet hovered proudly in front of them, exactly where Severus stood mere moments ago, without fully opening his large wings. Black eyes with that odd violet gleam. Sharp feathers glinted in the dormitory light, edges like knife blades, fitting. There was a small circle of white that stood in stark contrast against the black feathers, half hidden by the knife blades.

The bird flew around the room twice, wings scarping against the bed posts and the stone walls, leaving shallow marks against each surfaces. the boys' eyes followed its every move, dumbstruck and mouth open.

The raven circled one last time and shifted. the feathered blurred back into robes, the violet gleam, disappeared, the darkness bled out to show his pale complexion. He smirked when the rest of the Marauders were attracting flies in their wide open mouths.

"Werewolf bite is harmless to animals you know." He leaned back against his desk and pulled out his Transfiguration notes. Remus was still too shocked to process much information through his damaged brain.

_Click._

The Clicks were almost a daily occurrence now, something that only the Marauders could hear. It only happened when both Sirius Black and James Potter thought of something that wrecks havoc, breaks rules and makes the teachers wants to roast them over a fire all at once. The road to achieving said result almost always involved at least one of the Marauders.

Poor Severus then.

"Sev..." James started, inching towards the Slytherin with Sirius following close behind, Remus was inching towards the hidden passage door while praying that they won't notice him.

"Can you teach us?" Twin glints of hunger was hard to miss when the two pair of eyes are right in front of you, it was like those muggle traffic light things that could shone through even the heaviest of rains. Severus noticed the danger too late, and he gulped.

Remus just reached the brick door when the twins pounced.

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><p><strong>Do you guys even want to have a Harry Potter universe? Like the canon universe. I could, but I also won't. AU is showing its little head right now. It won't effect things as much until they get into Year 5-7, if you count the increase in murderous rages and quiet amusement from McGonagall and Dumbledore respectively, effecting things.<strong>

**Pay attention to detail, is my advice to all of you reading.**

**Do any of you have any suggestions on what to call Severus Animagus form? Review please!**


	9. Invisibility Cloak

**Chapter 9: Invisibility Cloak**

**Warning: ****This story may contain traces of: OOC-ness, spoilers, tortures, magical spells, AU, swords, powerful spells, badly written but still very awesome duels, family, severitus, spouts of random insanity now and again, rambling author notes and minor character bashing****. Engage at your discretion.**

**THE OTHER WARNING: This author is currently not very busy, bored out of her mind and suffers from severe cases of bad humor. Take the WARNING seriously, just not the author in general.**

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><p>The Marauders never were, never are and never will be a band of hooligans.<p>

That was the first rule they've established when all four of them made it official last night after the roller coaster ride of secrets, when the three of then dragged Remus back in of course. The wolf and the raven both put their foot down on their law, and the Twins had to obey because Remus was just about ready to call in the cats from the Slytherin dormitories.

They could hear the snarling felines quite clear thank you very much.

They would wreck havoc, that much was a guarantee that came with the Marauder job description, but they would do it all discreetly. Leaving everyone to know it was them but could never catch them in the act no matter how much they tried. Of course, James and Sirius didn't mind detention at all, but Severus point blank refused to even recognize them if they got him into one.

They had a Slytherin in their midst, surly discretion would not be that hard to achieve.

The above sentence was written with no sarcasm involved.

That's exactly what they were trying now, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a castle where everyone was asleep, in the middle of setting up their debut as _the_ mischief makers. It was discretion, if the word could stretch that far. It also served a good testing ground for them to explore the full extent of their abilities, until a better facility or situation came around.

James was extremely jealous as of this moment.

He was currently in the middle of the gigantic Great hall, the house tables all pushed to the side when it's curfew for the students, covered in his heirloom cloak and straining to keep Remus from falling, thirty something feet in the air, who was half dangling off the ceiling.

He gripped his wand tighter in his sweaty hands, ready to fight or flee is a teacher or another wandering student happened to look up and saw the twelve year old doing good knows what up on the ceiling with the moon and the clouds.

Severus had already cast the scare illusions up around the walls outside the library, and was now with Sirius, patrolling the entrance to the that corridor, setting up perimeters while Siri changed his appearance every once in a while for Sev to copy and set up another trap.

So basically between the four of them they had set up a large horrifying and somehow hilarious obstacle course to ward off intruders to the book filled room, giving Madam Pince her well deserved break from nosy students that after 11-17 years still didn't know what 'keep quiet' meant.

What Remus was doing up there was reserved for one person only. And here James thought only Severus was prone to violence. That wolf could be scary as hell some times. James thanked the deities known to mankind, muggle or otherwise for the _sometimes_ part. He just could not live with another Severus Snape.

That poor victim goes by the name Peter Pettigrew.

If James had to give one word to describe someone or put their name under a word definition, sarcastic would be Snape, unpredictable for Black, skulduggery for himself and equinox for Lupin. Somehow.

But for Pettigrew, pester and should-just-go-die would be the fittest.

They boy had taken upon himself to follow James and Sirius at every waking moments. He had to practically beg and bribe _Andromeda Black_ to ward his bed to get some sleep when he actually wanted to sleep and around Pettigrew's consistent whining. For a boy so useless, he has got quite the set of lungs.

Not to mention Pettigrew's continuous attempt to cut into their group and kicking Severus out in the process. His soundest reason for doing that consisted of "_But he's a Slytherin!" _and_ "You could do better than a slimy snake!"_

Not only did he attempt to move the Marauders, he was also the one whispering in over students' ears about how vile Slytherins were, especially that prat Snape. It didn't work. Pettigrew was a rat, a clever rat if you stretch the definitions. But Severus was a Prince. He had the charisma, the skills, the looks and the standings that Pettigrew could only dream about.

It only painted Pettigrew darker than he already is, and he was still trying.

His attempts only made him slid further up to Remus sacred To Prank/Kill list that no one in the school dared to steal or peak in fear of suspicious injuries caused by either magic or furry animals with sharp claws. It was only with Sirius' surprising acts of responsibility that prevented the use of Pettigrew's blood as a medium for Severus' rare drawings.

But the Marauders were _this_ close to coat Hogwarts' walls with the red of her second murder.

"Alright James?" A voice whispered in his cloak covered ear. It was only though a complete un-Gryffindor bout of will that he managed not to move and drop the still air borne Remus Lupin. He turned his head sharply to his right side and barely caught a flash of that now well acquainted black and violet light.

"Fine, you finished?" He hissed, managing to not sound so startled. In the marauders group Severus and Sirius had it easy. One could practically melt into the shadows and the other could prance around as Filch for the whole day and nobody would even yell "Black!"

Severus could still pudding from McGonagall's dessert plate and she wouldn't even notice the theft until much later, while James was stuck underneath his cloak that he had to share with Remus.

Not that he didn't appreciate the cloak. His father obviously needed it more than he did, catching the rumored followers of a new Dark Lord in secret because the Ministry is filled with a bunch of cowards that couldn't do a cleaning spell with fifty house elves helping a feat of childish endearment James saw so rarely these days, the great Charlus Potter gave the Potter heirloom to his mischievous son. He also told James that the cloak could hide you from anyone, even death itself.

The son smiled then, grinning from ear to ear as his childish hand clutched at the slippery material, happy that he got a present and a good joke from his now so serious father. The father smiled too, and winked. Neither of them realizing how true that statement was until much much later.

It was not until his seventh year, when James used that cloak to sneak into the Dark Lord Voldemort's stronghold with Sirius and Remus, when he threw that cloak around the three of them as they moved into the Prince's rooms, when he stood guard outside with the cloak around him while Moony and Padfoot worked desperately to pry the iron manacles from Severus' thin wrists, that he understood the importance of that invisibility cloak, and power that it gave him.

"Sev?" James whispered. It seemed he was not the only lost in thought, though 50% of the time he had no idea what Severus was thinking. The raven has got to be one of the rare group of people that James couldn't read. He wasn't always a bull-headed Gryffindor, he just acts like one 98% of the time.

"We're finished. Siri already went back to destroy the evidence. I'm waiting for you guys to finish," Severus' magical gleam flared again, revealing half of his face and his left hand, contrasting sharply against the blackness of night, and the tip of his ebony wand.

You OK?" Severus asked. James snorted lightly, resisting the urge to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead, not wanting to disturb Remus nor curb his concentration. He had never tried to lift someone before. Only chairs, breakfasts, newspapers and fruits. he really hoped Remus would be finished soon, he would never trust his Charms to save the wolf. The Charms master was the one floating thirty feet off the ground.

"If Remus falls, you promise to catch him? To prevent the breaking of a couple dozen werewolf bones?" He said, a heavy coat of joking smudged over his sincerity. Severus shot him a blank look that quickly turned into a half-hearted glare in about a second. James wasn't sure if there is a potion that could prevent someone from falling, though he knew Severus was probably going to invent one.

"Do you really have no confident in your abilities, James?" Severus sneered slightly, but nodded his consent. In the Marauders, between the four of them, Beast Master was the easiest to manage and master. You only need to look out for irritant animals that wants to make soup out of your fingers.

The _lesson's_ success relied heavily on Potter's abilities. Telekinesis is like wandless magic, but it relies on the user's mind more than the pull of his magical core where you can just poke at it, guide the raw magic outwards, and _voila_. As pained I am to admit it, James Potter always had a strong mind.

He'll need it if he wanted to survive the war slowly brewing outside. If he wanted to win, and keep him and his brothers away from the sick tongues of grief that threatened to swallow them whole.

If he wanted his prank to work, and Remus to live further than his second year.

The Marauders would never be the same if anyone of them were to disappear.

"James, I'm done! Can you let me down now?" Remus called down from the ceiling, the stars of the night flitted to his nose and poked a small freckle there. Remus blushed in response. James was so surprised at the wolf's reaction and his worse than poor vision that he lost his concentration. And he dropped the twelve year old Beast Master.

From thirty feet up.

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><p>"I am sorry, Rem! I told you at least 3 times this morning that twenty times last night that I was sorry." A boy with hazel eyes and messy black hair exclaimed on his way to the Great Hall for breakfast, yawning along the way. The person the boy was attempting to wriggle a forgiveness out of coldly turned his sandy haired head to the side, to avoid looking at the boy's half pouting face.<p>

Another boy spoke before Remus could retort, "you did drop him from thirty feet up, I think he does have a right to reservations, especially to you James." It was a boy with a thick boy in his pale hands, bangs of long black hair fell into his eyes as he read while he walked along.

James looked ready to spit fire out of his nostrils. "Severus..."

The fourth and final boy thought this was a good moment to butt it, snaking an arm around James' shoulders, grin stretching from ear to ear that completely failed to look innocent, "Apologies aside, how do you think the school will take our lesson?" Tall and Handsome to a fault, Sirius Black garnered more than enough stares and awws of "so cute" along the way.

James smirked then. Remus went into his scary wolf mode.

"Let's find out," said Severus, a wicked gleam in his eyes.

"It won't cause that much disturbance right?"Remus asked with only a small tad of concern in his voice. James snorted while Sirius disguised his laughs in bout of unfortunate coughing fit.

Severus shrugged, "We'll have enough food in our systems when it explodes, I do believe the student body of Hogwarts could last until lunch with an interruption at the end of their breakfast." Sirius and James gave Remus twin sets of its-fine and no-harm-done grins.

"Though with _some_ students present I might need to rethink my calculations." Severus said coldly, throwing a warning glare through his bangs and over his book. The Twins ducked sheepishly, with Remus making no sign of offering any comfort.

Breakfast in the great hall went as well as normal. That meant the Slytherins were discussing politics and their classes, the Ravenclaws adding several more inches to their essays and debating among themselves about today's Prophet, the Hufflepuffs laughing and talking and comparing owls and homework, the Gryffindors eating like there is no tomorrow and discussing Quidditch teams and cups.

Only four students were not whole focused on eating and socializing, because they were waiting for one thing.

When the breakfast for the occupants of the has come to a relative end for the four of them, but not really for the student body, with a signal from Remus, James made his move.

Suddenly, a loud shriek filled the walls, and a short boy with grubby skin and watery eyes fell out of his seat and into the middle of the Great Hall, a few plastic spiders still clinging onto the front of his uniform. A flash of hot rage filled his round face and Peter Pettigrew rose with his wand, small eyes intending to find the culprit for that amateur prank.

Bad idea.

Gather around class, this is exhibit A12, one of the prime examples of not thinking through a situation and forgetting where you are. It usually leads to unexpected and stupid things to happen to you. It also enables your enemy to have a shot at taking you down. Please take down notes as we well have an assignment afterwards. Simmons, I specifically said, barely 10 minutes ago, that we do not put a girl's arm in between your teeth!

Sorry for that interruption.

Green slime exploded from the ceiling, raining down upon the four tables the human anatomies. The younger students shrieked and ducked under the tables, the older ones took out their wands and tried to get the green things off of their robes. No one and nothing escaped the rain.

Except for a rat. Scared and extremely clueless at what the hell just happened, remained rooted to the spot. Helpless and confused. Soon it became a face of shock and denial.

But what are you gonna do. You had your wand out.

When everyone regained the basic sense of pride and dignity, all glares, big and small, were directed to Mr. Pettigrew's direction. The rat gulped when the furious face of McGonagal and Slughorn came storming down.

This incident will forever be recorded under Hogwarts: A History's: Marauders, How Did They Form, How Did They End and Why Did We Became So Scared of them.

This incident will forever be recorded under James' little Marauder's biography book he wrote like an awards chart that he gave to his son when he was due to start at Hogwarts. It was listed under: Why You Should Not Get On Remus Lupin's Badside.

Please, they were just getting started. Having a good time while it lasts.

There's a storm brewing outside, a price one of them must pay before anything can be undone.

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><p><strong>I hate Pettigrew. I really really do.<strong>

**I am sorry for not updating but as the end of the year rolled around, times got busy. The summer holidays in Australia have come and do expect a daily update and a soon to be there sequel. Raven's Flight is the easy going one, while the sequel is the more oppressive one. I do believe I got over excited with the hints. I just love to make my characters suffer.**

**I hate it when one character have all the mythical magical powers *heir of some house, confusing powers that came with questionable origins etc* and everyone else relied on him to save the day *cough* Harry Potter *cough*. Voldemort is going down, I think, but it will happen with teamwork and some character bashing. We all love to make our characters better or worse than they already are.**

**Pay attention to detail, is my advice to all of you reading.**

**Do any of you have any suggestions on what to call Severus Animagus form? Review please!**


	10. Years Between

**Chapter 10: Years Between**

**Warning: ****This story may contain traces of: OOC-ness, spoilers, tortures, magical spells, AU, swords, powerful spells, badly written but still very awesome duels, family, severitus, spouts of random insanity now and again, rambling author notes and minor character bashing****. Engage at your discretion.**

**THE OTHER WARNING: This author is currently not very busy, bored out of her mind and suffers from severe cases of bad humor. Take the WARNING seriously, just not the author in general.**

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><p>You'll be surprised at how much people and places can change after a few years.<p>

The world outside the safety of Hogwarts was in turmoil. Utter turmoil.

A dark wizard by the name Lord Voldemort surfaced, with his charismatic charade and growing number of followers, had swept the wizarding world into a fierce and violent storm.

First came the warnings, on ministry supply trains, on muggle-born officials' offices and paperworks, nothing major that the ministry couldn't brush came the raids, few and far between, but they still happened. On muggle business companies, on slums and universities. Not on family dwellings. Not yet anyway.

The Auror office was swarming with all the reports that kept coming in, about a man with bone white skin and red eyes, about a green mark hovering above burning buildings: a skull with a snake slithering out of its mouth.

No matter what they seem to do, the hooded figures kept escaping, and the innocent people kept dying, with the trained wizards one second later than they should have been.

The outside world was afraid, most for death and pain, others in fear of recruitment and change, of killing, of torturing, of being a murderer because someone urged you to make a terrible decision, and you were powerless to disobey him.

But there was a small amount of wizards that were happy. Not the students at Hogwarts, but for the willing followers of this Lord Voldemort, it was like Christmas arriving early.

Some joined Voldemort in fear, for fear of what would happen to their families and their children if they chose to oppose the powerful wizard.

some joined when they were promised gold, power, prestige, respect. they were bribed and threatened and coaxed into the Dark side for something they always wanted but didn't have enough courage to seek.

And some submitted after the Voldemort promised to restore the Old Ways to the wizarding world.

Many pureblood families go way back, all the way from the medieval times or even perhaps further and often kept to the traditions the ministry preached as evil. They watched in silent protests as their world abandoned Samhuinn and Yulemas, abandoned the offerings to the dead and the prayers to Hecate and Loki and Isis. They instead went to the muggle ways of pumpkin and costumes and candies and present under trees wrapped in crystal baubles.

This angered the old families that still worshiped the Greek goddess Hecate, the Norse Trickster Loki and the Egyptian Queen Isis, that still made offerings on the last day of October to help their long gone loved ones find their way home. The ministry almost obliterated their family magics, so the only way to keep them is to destroy the opposition first.

The best defense is the best offense, as the ancient Romans would say.

So they killed and murdered and destroyed. Everyone had the power to kill, but not even Voldemort were prepared to be killed.

Inside Hogwarts, the safe haven for magical children that would one day shape the world, things were far from calm.

There were two types of not-calm surrounding Hogwarts. One was the unrest fueled by what's happening outside, while the other was fueled by the hormones and pranks inside the castle walls. But still, Hogwarts' trouble was very different from the trouble brewing outside.

The easy version:

Ministry: Call the the aurors, Lord voldemort is trying to break into the archives!

Aurors: They are wiping us out! Ten men firing spells and ten more making paper planes out of the Minster's paychecks!

Hogwarts: Call the rest of the Marauders, Black is breaking into Filch's office for his dungbombs again!

Random Student 1: Which Black?!

The Original Student: The one with the mental issues you dumbo! Now hurry, the door is cracking!

The Black that Has Mental Issues: I do not have psychological illnesses you hideous author. Now help me get my bomb back!

The Hideous Author: Who are you calling hideous you mutt?!

Etc.

Ahem, as I was saying before I got carried away:

The unrest in the two 'worlds' were as different as you can possibly achieve, most of the times. One is stifling and seemingly never ending, while the other causes mass panic and whacking of heads with hard-covered books. Most of the time.

In the middle of the both storms, four boys stood. All attractive, all intelligent, all powerful, and they 're all capable of great things. Great things always comes at a high price. and all the heroic princes all have distressing stories to tell.

Third and fourth year went by quite peacefully for almost every student of Hogwarts. They were unaffected by the brewing chaos outside that threatened to turn into a full sized war. Pranks were pulled, girls were snogged, teachers were annoyed, students were irritated and friendships were built, or made stronger.

Not all of them were free though.

Sirius Black and Severus Snape had the worst summer out of the four of them. Though granted the summer after fourth year involved a lot of blood and tears. Sirius' parents didn't harass him much when he got himself sorted into Ravenclaw, they were especially proud when his school exam results came crashing through the window, always by an eccentric owl that screamed Dumbledore's influence.

Walburga and Orion generally left him alone to his own devices when he came home, with usually only books and animagus practices to keep him company. His brother still followed after him whenever possible, but the times he spent with Regulus were growing steadily less over the years, at home or at school. The times he saw his cousins were almost none existent.

Cissy became Narcissa Malfoy, posh and perfect, the ideal Pureblood wife. Andy became Dromeda Tonks, a master healer and the only one bothered to keep contact with him anymore. Though thanks to Severus Narcissa still acknowledged Andromeda as her sister and not a disgraced stranger. What worried him and Sev the most was Bella.

Or Bellatrix Lestrange, to be more precise.

Bella had broken off all contacts to her person, save for her two sisters and Severus whom she now nicknamed Vera for his exceedingly long hair, the minute after her wedding ceremony. His aunt and uncle didn't seem worried, but he couldn't help but feel anxious, like Bellatrix had done something she'll soon regret.

Severus and Sirius had taken upon themselves to escape their respective homes whenever they could, usually to James' mansion that he calls a cottage. Him to escape the suffocating air of the Black family and the praises for Voldemort, Severus to get away from the cold depression that had fallen over Prince Manor when his grandmother were killed in a raid, pointed directly at him.

The summer before fifth year, a year later dubbed by a somber Sirius as the year everything changed, when the raven the wolf and the soon to be mutt met on the Knight Bus, the air was depressing enough to seemingly weigh down even the most energetic of things.

It was then they heard of Fenrir Greyback.

Fenrir: son of Loki, the Norse god of magic, mischief and fire, The Great Wolf.

Fitting, since Greyback and his pack were responsible for almost a quarter of the werewolf population in the world. Remus Lupin was turned by Greyback personally when he was four, just because Remus' father badmouthed werewolves and Greyback happened to be within earshot.

The werewolf had taken an usual by not quite unexpected interest over young Remus here. And by what Remus had told them over the roar of the triple-deckered bus, Greyback was undoubtedly in league with Voldemort, and though recruiting him would be fun.

It was only through the animals in the forest and the hiding skills he had honed to near perfection with the Marauders that he managed to avoid a direct confrontation with the Alpha werewolf.

Greyback had been persistent over the summers, though none were more persistent than Lord Voldemort himself.

"I saw Voldemort," they said simultaneously when the three of them saw James and Charlus Potter at the front hall of Potter cottage. There was a long silence of shock and word processing, then Sirius and Severus looked at each other with the same horrified expressions, and everyone burst into chaos.

Questions were fired in every direction possible, much like the Potter's hair. Mr. Potter for information, Mrs. Potter for their well being, James for overall curiosity and Remus for how the hell did you survive?

A question they all liked to know.

The one that met the darkest wizard in a century in better circumstances would have to be Sirius, where Walburga actually _invited_ Voldemort to dinner.

Sometimes Sirius hated the connections and prestige that came with being a Black. He'll be immensely grateful to it after Voldemort attacked Hogwarts, but right now, he hates it.

As much as he despised that stupid lord with the handsome face and the red eyes that felt so much like Severus'. so cold, he grudgingly admitted that Voldemort was good, very good. So good that he manipulated at least a dozen Slytherins in the room and none of them even thought about tricks.

Charismatic and confident, proud and intelligent. Voldemort had won the hearts of many nobles that night at the dinner party, and also pushed said nobles into a ravine without end to fund his own benefits, or at least dangled them above it, waiting for the drop. None of them noticed, except him.

He wasn't a Ravenclaw for nothing, no matter how much Severus teased him about it.

He saw through Voldemort's act later then he should, though he couldn't shake off the feeling that the wizard had let him to. Dared him to speak up and oppose him in front of so many people.

Thankfully, he did grew up in a pit of snakes, and went to school in a nest of eagles, so he wasn't stupid.

Voldemort was powerful, not only with wands, but with words as well. He could spin them into a web of lies that any self respecting spider would be proud of, a web so transparent that it could ensnare a dozen pureblood nobles, not even aware they've been caught like flies.

When Sirius finished, the moon was high in the sky, and the room was lit by the comforting glow of candle lights and they bathed in the smell of hot chocolates. The adults already retreated to give the four friends some space.

But they should have stayed.

Voldemort had a name other than 'flight from death,' a truly insignificant name of Tom Riddle. Severus' mother had gone to school with Riddle, and his grandparents despised everything about the boy and made no secret of it.

It seemed Voldemort came back to say the same thing, 30 years later.

He couldn't find Augustus Prince when he slipped though the wards, though he did find his wife and his grandson, both reading in the gardens when a shadow towered over them.

Severus refused to give details, though anyone who looked can see the twin bruises around his wrist, and how much he favored them. Voldemort came alone, and he saw death at the age of fifteen. Prince Manor went unscathed, though Voldemort had left his message crystal clear.

It wasn't reported in the newspaper, but everyone who is anyone knew.

Prince Manor's wards increased tenfold and Severus sought revenge.

_So that's why Dad went berserk one morning when the daily reports came in, _James said when Sirius finished his second trip to the bathroom after his imagination got the better of him.

As head of the Auror offices, lieutenant under the famous Alastor Moody, reports and constant vigilance was always present in Charlus Potter's life. When one morning he received an urgent message from Wizamungot from the head of the Prince family, and put two and two together about James and his summer wars with Sirius Black, rushed off without even thinking about breakfast.

That was the first time he had seen his father take off like that, but it won't be his last.

He had seen his father so little these days. He left home early and came back later, sometimes dripping blood on the floor, sometimes coming home tired but relieved and sometimes he staggered though the door the next morning, paper and wands weighing him down.

James really hatted himself when his father came home injured and covered in blood, usually not his own. The only thing he could do was transfigure clocks into cushions and make bandages and pace the room until his mother comes home.

He really wished Remus was there whenever his father collapsed, waving his wand about and summoning pain numbing charms he couldn't produce no matter how feverishly he tried. Or Sirius, with his prowess at defensive spells that there would be no need for his father to get hurt in the first place. Or even better Severus, where a potions could instantly stop the blood and mend the bones.

He couldn't help but feel useless whenever he encountered something like that and no one was around.

A burden.

He couldn't be more wrong.

* * *

><p><strong>Heavy stuff, next chapter will be lighter but it was a war.<strong>

**Sorry I'm late but family dinners are just diabolical. The Talk was much worse. Like I've said, Raven's Flight was like a humor/friendship/comfort story while its sequel is much darker. Much, _much_ darker.**

**Pay attention to detail, is my advice to all of you reading.**

**Do any of you have any suggestions on what to call Severus Animagus form? Review please!**


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